


Damnati ad Ludum

by taispeantas_laethuil



Series: Causa Belli [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe- Rebellion, An Inch of Roses, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Significant Touching, Slavery, Woe and Misery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2018-10-26 02:55:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 67,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10778022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taispeantas_laethuil/pseuds/taispeantas_laethuil
Summary: In the second year of the Tevinter Civil War, the Lucerni forces find themselves overwhelmed and on the run, many of their number captured and sentenced to death. This includes Dorian, and, after a fashion, a Qunari agent going by the name of the Iron Bull.Otherwise known as the Gladiator AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've got like, a literal year's worth of further updates up on the kinkmeme. If you want to peek ahead, [here's](https://dragonage-kink.dreamwidth.org/89812.html?thread=361800916#cmt361800916) the link to the new thread of Dreamwidth.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This portion of the story was posted on the kink meme in the period of February 7th- February 19th 2016

They were both here because of the rebellion.  
  
The Bull had followed Krem, who'd seen the chance to free his father of the fuckfest that was his homeland once and for all and took it with both hands. Krem, who he’d last seen bleeding out into the streets of Marothius while the Bull was pinned and helpless beneath the remains of most of a bathhouse.  
  
He’d woken up in chains. Someone had pegged him as one of the rebelling slaves, and he hadn’t argued, figuring that holding his tongue was the best way to keep breathing for long enough learn what happened to Krem.  
  
Three months later, they'd decided that his previous owner wasn’t going to come and claim him, and put him up on the auction block. He’d been bought by Claudia Marini, given an axe and a practice dummy, and had been a part of her ludus ever since.  
  
There wasn’t any need to ask what Dorian’s story was. Even if he hadn’t heard his name so often spoken in the same breath as Maevaris Tilani’s, it would have been obvious what had landed him here. A mage of his skill, walking like he did, talking like he did? It would have been obvious that he one of the Lucerni’s Altus members even if they hadn’t branded his cheek with the letter ‘L’.  
  
They first met on the training ground, just before the last round of the day. Just behind the low inner wall of the practice yard, dead-eyed Tranquil- the Tevinter equivalent of _viddath-bas_ \- were heating up the stones for their massages, the hiss of steam adding a strange counterpoint to the sound of the other gladiators talking, and the lanista chewing out one of the other novices.  
  
“Nice work with that laquearius,” the Bull said. Dorian, comically, looked around to see who was speaking to him. “I thought she had you there when she managed to lasso your staff, but you pulled through.”  
  
“You can talk!” He sounded so surprised.  
  
“Yeah,” the Bull replied, amused. “I can also pat my head and rub my belly, both at the same time.”  
  
Dorian smiled. “Apologies,” he said, holding up one hand. “I meant no comment on your intelligence. It’s just- I know that it’s a practice, for some owners to cut out the tongue along with the horns.”  
  
“Oh.” One of the Bull’s hands reached up to one of the stubs left behind when they cut off his horns. “I think they just got tired of the way they would keep hitting the doorframe of my cell.”  
  
The smile Dorian gave him in return was full of sympathy, empathy even. He was still handsome with the brand, but he’d read enough of those shitty Tevene novels Krem complained about (even though, somehow, they kept turning up around camp) to know that the ‘vints could get pretty fucked in the head about scars, especially on the face. Probably, Dorian knew _exactly_ how he felt about the missing horns.  
  
Then the lanista called for their last practice run of the day, and it was back to work.

* * *

 

As far as being a slave went, life in the ludus wasn’t bad. Discipline was strict, but not arbitrary: if you got tapped out for a punishment, you pretty much always knew what you’d done wrong, and what was waiting for you. Rations were plentiful, even if they were a little light on meat and heavy on tonics, and there were water cisterns all over the place. All of the gladiators had their own private cells to sleep in at night, even if they were locked from the outside-  
  
-and he tried not to think of Seheron, about children screaming as they burned, unable to open the door, he tried-  
  
-and, of course, Marini could send her people to fetch you out of them at any time. Aside from that, there was a routine. Wake up. Cold water bath. Running. Breakfast. Drilling. Lunch. Sparring matches. Hot water bath. Massage. Shower. Dinner. Punishments, if anyone had earned any. Meetings with potential sponsors, and whoever they had commissioned for armor or weapons or portraits. Then back to your cell until morning, unless Marini wanted you.  
  
Marini tended to want young human women: as far as he could tell, when the house guards came down for anyone else, she had a guest over. Once, about three weeks after he arrived, a group of four house guards came down for Dorian: they returned maybe two hours or so later, all five of them stinking of sex. They slammed the door shut when they left, jarring Yenko in the cell next to him awake with a groan. The noise didn’t seem to bother Mara, who kept snoring away. The Bull tried to focus on that, rather than the harsh, shaking pants Dorian was making in the cell next to his: the sounds of someone trying very hard not to cry.  
  
Dorian spent a little more time in the cold water the following morning, ran a little more stiffly around the courtyard, and then sat next to the Bull.  
  
“I don’t suppose you have any tips?” he asked in an undertone. If he hadn’t been practically seated on his lap, the Bull wouldn’t have heard him at all. “Concerning how to hide one’s contempt from their owners perhaps?”  
  
“Who said I held them in contempt?” the Bull replied.  
  
“The fact that you aren’t a blithering moron,” Dorian told him.  
  
“Aw, you’re so sweet.”  
  
Dorian rolled his eyes.  
  
“It’s mostly practice,” the Bull said.  
  
“Ah,” Dorian replied. “I was afraid that might be it.”

The rebellion had been a windfall for Marini: it had flooded the market with skilled fighters she would never have been able to afford otherwise. Her ludus was full for the first time in what must have been years, and most of her fighters were former Lucerni, including, on paper at least, the Bull.  
  
That meant that most of her fighters were actually condemned to die in the arena. There was wiggle room, he’d been assured: if he could fight well for three years, or maybe five, gain some popularity or the attention of someone wealthy, then there was the possibility of a pardon, and manumission.  
  
Everyone one knew that didn’t extend to Dorian: he was supposed to die in his first match.  
  
That was kind of a good sign of where people’s hopes for the future lay. People who thought they had a shot at being freed stayed clear of Dorian. People who just figured they would die for the Lucerni cause in the arena instead of the streets of Perivantium or wherever the fighting had moved to had to problem with associating with him.  
  
The Bull stuck in with the second group. He wasn’t pretty sure his chances for patronage and popularity weren’t good, even without the horns. More importantly, if Krem had ever gotten back up again, or the rest of his boys got impatient and came over the border after them, they would try the Lucerni first. He needed to be in a position to hear of them, and these were the people most likely to speak of it.  
  
News was slow to come while the Senate was in session and they had no arena to fight in, no outsiders to mingle with, with the exception of the newest purchases, who everyone pumped for information, but only ever arrived on market days, once every fortnight.  
  
There weren’t really given time to socialize a lot, but their meals were communal and sometimes they had time, after dinner, to mill about in the courtyard while a handful of them were called out to present themselves to a potential patron.  
  
In the same group as Dorian was Crispin, another Lucerni mage, a Laetan by birth and not nearly as high up in the rebel food chain as Dorian had been; Hillarion, Mara, and Tavarius, former soldiers who had defected to join the Lucerni; Yenko, an older elf with a ‘F’ branded onto his forehead; and Iris, the youngest of any of them, a skinny elven girl of maybe twenty years.  
  
It was an existence. He didn’t feel bad enough about it to choose otherwise.

* * *

And then the word came down from on high that Perivantium had been pacified. No one said anything about the Lucerni ringleaders, so everyone assumed that they were all still alive and at large, perhaps retreating west to Solas, or maybe even Nessum. It was all speculation, when it came to what happened to the losers. What they knew for sure was that the winners were throwing a party.  
  
That meant games. An entire week’s worth of them, happening right at the end of the month, when they all thought that they had until the new year before the season started up again.  
  
Suddenly, the number of potential patrons tripled, and the number of overnight guests doubled. The Bull could sleep very well: every time the guards came down to the cells to escort someone back to the house for the night, he woke up. They took Mara (once), Crispin (three times), Hillarion (eight times), Iris (five times) and Dorian (four times) in that time.  
  
They took him twice, too.  
  
It wasn’t as bad as he’d been fearing it would be: nothing his Ben-Hassrath training hadn’t prepared him for. There was no blood magic, no demons, nothing tried to overtake his mind. He still had that much. He treated it like this was an undercover operation: his body submitted like he was with a tamassran, his mind worked like he was facing interrogation. It wasn’t pleasant, but it got the job done.  
  
He walked out of the second session with a patron: a meat-packer named Tullio Aulus who ran a chain of abattoirs on the outskirts of Minrathous.  
  
“Why he wants to sponsor a Qunari to advertise his beef is a real mystery,” he said, the night he got the news. It pushed Dorian out of incredulous staring into incredulous laughter, and the others followed.  
  
Aulus himself arrived later, just after the second moon had risen. The Bull was called to present himself again: though this time, Aulus did nothing but have him strip out of his pants and let him pinch him wherever he pleased.  
  
“We’ve kept his horns,” Marini said. She opened up a box, and well. There they were, laid out on a velvet cushion. “I’d thought we could use them to make a plaster cast, for my blacksmith to forge a set he could wear for the arena. Perhaps silverite?”  
  
“I’m not spending the money for silverite. He’s the Iron Bull, isn’t he? Make them from iron,” Aulus said.  
  
They haggled a bit more over his armor (Aulus made a point of slapping the Bull's belly hard enough to set his fat jiggling as he complained about the cost of a full set of armor) and his weapons (“he’s the Iron Bull, he gets iron weapons, and nothing fancier than that”) before Aulus left in a huff, his purse significantly lighter.  
  
“Put on your clothes, for Andraste’s sake,” Marini snapped at him.  
  
“Yes ma’am,” the Bull replied.  
  
The courtyard had been emptied by that point, so the guards took him back to his cell.

* * *

The day before they were due to begin the games, a new Tranquil began working in the ludus as a masseur. The Bull wouldn’t have done more than notice the new face- Marini was coming home with more and more support personnel, last market day had seen the arrival of two new healers, each wearing the same brands and collars as Dorian and Crispin, for example- but for Dorian’s reaction.  
  
Dorian took one look at the man made the sort of sound the Bull normally heard from him when someone managed to bash a shield into his sternum. “Real?” it sounded like he said. Then he coughed, and tried again.  
  
“ _Rilienus._ ”  
  
The new Tranquil turned to face him, just as dead-eyed as the rest of them.  
  
“Rilienus, do you remember who I am?” Dorian asked, taking a hesitant step forward.  
  
“You are Dorian of House Pavus,” the Tranquil replied. Dorian made another sound like he’d been hit. “You probably wish to know that the others are safe. I was injured, and had to stay behind. Magister Tilani wanted to use a prearranged meeting place for me to rejoin the Lucerni once I recovered, but I persuaded her that this would be unwise. Magister Alexius swore the safehouse would burn before the Magisterium arrived. They cannot be tracked through me. They are safe.”  
  
Dorian looked like he was about to cry. “Oh, Rilienus, I’m so sorry. I should never have asked you to come with me.”  
  
“It was my choice,” Rilienus said firmly. “I would not have chosen to watch you go alone.”  
  
Dorian had nothing to say to that.  
  
“Come with me,” Rilienus said, after a moment. “You require a massage. I am familiar with your body. This is logical.”  
  
Dorian followed him numbly, almost stumbling over his own feet. The Bull watched him go.  
  
“Are you already being taken care of, the Iron Bull?” asked another Tranquil.  
  
“No,” the Bull told her.  
  
“Follow me.”  
  
The Bull went.

* * *

The Bull found Dorian later that night, tucked against a corner pillar, the closest thing to privacy there was in the courtyard. Privacy was in even shorter supply tonight than it normally was, when there was wine flowing freely and food still available. The games started tomorrow: apparently, that meant they got to party like it was their last night alive.  
  
And there was Dorian, hunkered down in the corner, trying to be on his own. With the Bull standing in front of him, he was almost completely hidden from view.  
  
“What do you want?” Dorian snapped after a moment of trying to pretend the Bull didn’t exist.  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?” Normally he’d recommend another sparring match- some physical activity and a bit of bruising went a long way towards keeping someone from getting lost in their own head- but they weren’t allowed to fight outside of practices. That left talking.  
  
“Talk about what?” Dorian hissed. He kept his voice pitched low, and his eyes darted around, looking for potential eavesdroppers even though he was talking pretty forcefully with his hands. That was a good sign. It meant he still valued his life enough to be careful. “Talk about the fact that they made my- made Rilienus Tranquil, and then apparently arranged for him to end up in the same ludus as myself? Talk about the fact that my friends who aren’t either dead or captured are being pursued across the country in what’s sounding more and more like a civil war? Or perhaps I should cut to the chase and talk about the fact that I’m meant to die tomorrow? That I’m to be made an example of? That they plan to kill me in an as publically humiliating manner as possible, and then make an etching of my corpse, so that it might be waved under the nose of anyone who dares to voice a desire for change until the end of the next age? Do I want to talk about that, is that what you mean?”  
  
“Yeah,” the Bull said. “Do you?”  
  
Dorian seemed to deflate a bit as he settled back against the pillar. “Actually, no, I would not,” he replied.  
  
“Fair enough,” the Bull said. “You mind if I talk?”  
  
“By all means,” Dorian said with a wave of his hand.  
  
“Did I ever tell you about the group I was running with before I got caught?” he asked.  
  
“No, you haven’t really spoke of your life before all this at all,” Dorian reminded him.  
  
“We called ourselves the Bull’s Chargers. I was the leader, of course: my second was a man named Cremisius Aclassi, a deserter like Hillarion and Mara.” He jerked his head to the side, where Hillarion and Mara were furiously making out against a wine casket.  
  
The corner of Dorian’s mouth twitched.  
  
The Bull talked about his Chargers- making sure to keep free of details that might draw attention to the fact that most of them weren’t from Tevinter- until the house slaves came to clear the detritus away, and the gladiators were herded into their cells. When the call to break up the party sounded, Dorian reached out and clasped the Bull’s hand between his own.  
  
“Thank you,” he said. “For the distraction.”  
  
“Thank _you_ , for letting me talk about my boys,” the Bull replied.  
  
He hadn’t meant to say that last part. He was kind of surprised by how much he meant it.

* * *

They were woken up earlier in the morning that usual: it wasn’t even the dull grey of pre-dawn when they were herded out of their cells. They skipped breakfast, and their morning run, and went straight from bathing to being primped in preparation for their first public appearances.  
  
The Bull lost the beard he’d been growing, but after a whispered conversation between Marini and Aulus’ representative, he was allowed to keep the hair on his head. Dorian emerged, his hair trimmed and his mustache waxed and lacquered into severe points, the rest of the facial hair that had grown on him gone.  
  
“And now I actually look like myself,” Dorian said with a forced smile, shifting uncomfortably. He was naked, save for his collar. They were all naked: armor and clothing would be provided once they were ready to fight at the arena.  
  
They had to get there first.  
  
The carriage ride from the ludus and into the city proper wasn’t too bad: awkward and quiet, but not bad. Once they got closer to the amphitheater near the center of Minrathous, and the roads got narrower and more crowded, they disembarked and went the rest of the way on foot, their group falling in along with a few other ludus' worth of gladiators.  
  
The streets had obviously been cleaned fairly recently. That was something. It meant that there was no broken glass or animal shit to worry about, which was nice, considering they were surrounded by people, and the guards from the ludus suddenly looked a lot more like escorts than an obstacle to freedom.  
  
They dealt with the staring in different ways. The Bull made a game of finding a ‘vint would was staring a little too closely, catching their eyes, and winking. The ex-soldiers fell into a marching step, eyes front, just putting one foot in front of the other and ignoring the spectators. Yenko and a couple of others who’d been born in slavery just treated it like it was an ordinary walk down the street. Iris puffed herself up, daring someone in the crowds to make something of it. Dorian tried to follow her example, but like Crispin and some of the other free-born, he was obviously humiliated. They all walked in silence, following along behind Marini's sedan.  
  
This was the heart of Minrathous: buildings older than the Chant, the outline of a Juggernaut visible in the fog, and looming up ahead, their destination. The Capitoline Amphitheater Complex: sixteen smaller antetheater buildings, a museum, and a menagerie interspaced with the tents and stalls and carts of a temporary bazaar, all of it dwarfed by the sphere of the amphitheater itself.  
  
They made it all the way to the amphitheater complex, where there were crowds of people milling around waiting to hear the results of the lottery for the free seats, before there was any real trouble.  
  
“Traitors!” called out someone from the crowd. “Lucerni scum!”  
  
The crowd had been contenting itself with glaring and mutters up until that point, but that one person’s shouting opened up a floodgate. It was hard to hear each individual call, but the ones that the Bull could make out (“My husband is dead because of you!”) were pretty personal. It was kind of inevitable, that someone pulled off their sandal and chucked it at them, and from there they had to hustle to get into their antetheater before the crowd start prying the cobblestones up from the square and throwing those.  
  
None of the Lucerni were exactly happy about that, but Dorian was rattled the worst out of all of them.  
  
“We were meant to be helping these people,” he insisted miserably. “We were supposed to be making their lives better.”  
  
There wasn’t anything to be said to that, so they just shuffled forward to await the beginning of the games.

* * *

There were only eight of the thirty-six gladiators Marini owned playing at these games: as a result, they were sharing their antetheater with gladiators from three other luduses. Marini went to mingle with the other owners, all four of them wearing the sharp, toothy smiles of professional rivals, while the gladiators were weighed, measured, inspected, and then locked in the farthest row of cells.  
  
Well. They were more like cages. The cells in the ludus had the illusion of privacy, four walls and a mostly-solid door: sure there was a cut-out window and every noise echoed around the whole area, but you could kind of pretend it was your own space. The cells in the antetheater were almost entirely bars. The only reason they had a single wall was because they were up against the side of the building: the cells in the middle didn’t even have that much.  
  
The Bull settled up down on the puny human-sized cot in his cell, and waited for the games to start.  
  
For some reason, he was expecting that to be it: they’d arrived, now they just had to wait for the games to begin. He’d kind of forgotten that he was in Tevinter, and everything was a thousand times more complicated than it needed to be.  
  
“Look out,” said one of the gladiators from another ludus. “Here come the gawkers.”  
  
The gawkers consisted mostly of magisters, draped in robes and jewels that probably cost more than the Bull had. There were also a handful of publicars- the soporati senators- and surface dwarves, and even one or two especially rich-looking human members of the merchant class. A lot of them had come to size them up and discuss betting with the people who worked at the amphitheater. More of them, or so it seemed to the Bull, were there for Dorian. They were certainly the loudest.  
  
They’d been expected, too: Dorian had been pointedly herded towards the first cell, which left two open sides for gawkers to congregate on, jostling each other out of the way as they taunted him. The smart thing to do would have been to ignore them entirely, but Dorian seemed to determined to engage each and every one of them as they came for him.  
  
“I always thought you might end up like this. You always were happy on your knees, Dorian.”  
  
“I was always happy to return a favor from a friend, certainly Percival.”  
  
Dorian tried to give as good as he got, but he was naked, collared, caged, and supposed to die for their amusement not very long from now. It wasn’t a tenable position, no matter how clever he was. The Bull couldn’t blame the guy for trying though, deep down. It was obvious that most of these people had known him from before he was even Lucerni, let alone enslaved. It was all so _personal_.

The worst of it came at the very end of the gawking phase. One magister in particular had been hanging back, watching and waiting for the crowd to thin. Most of the visitors had left the antetheater and those who remained were deep in conversation about statistics and luck with the staff when he finally approached Dorian’s cell.  
  
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Dorian of House Pavus,” he said.  
  
“Pleasure to see you as always, Erimond,” Dorian replied. “I see your grasp of the obvious remains as firm as ever.”  
  
“You’d be surprised, I think, by how much is within my grasp these days,” Erimond rejoined smoothly.  
  
“Oh? Have you finally figured out how to swing your own staff?”  
  
Erimond ignored the retort. “For example: I have a contact in the Templars, and enough sway in the Magisterium to get a sentence of immolation for treason commuted to a sentence of Tranquility. I can even reunite the traitor in question with his lover.”  
  
Dorian’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, his face contorted with fury.  
  
“You should be thanking me upon bended knee, Dorian,” Erimond continued. “I’ve done you a great favor.”  
  
Dorian stalked over to the door, separated from Erimond by several viridium bars and a few inches. Erimond waited, a cruel smirk on his face.  
  
Dorian spat at his feet. “That’s all the thanks you’ll get from me.”  
  
“It will be such a pleasure to watch you get ripped to shreds,” Erimond said.  
  
He stalked off, up the stairs at the far end of the antetheater. A few moments later, and they could hear the opening fanfare begin, and the others gawkers and the ludus owners followed him out, leaving behind their private guards as well as those who belonged to the amphitheater.

Another amphitheater slave came in, balancing a platter of bread on one arm and a platter of empty mugs on the other. One guard from each ludus came forward, picking bread off of the platter at random and giving it out to their gladiators as the amphiteaters slaves filled the mugs.  
  
They got one tiny loaf of bread and one mug of water each. He supposed that was breakfast.  
  
“So, how much more crap do we have to sit through, exactly?” the Bull asked.  
  
“If I am recalling the protocol correctly, that should be it until the games start. Then our owners will return to ensure that we’re all suitably prepared for our matches,” Dorian said. “And also, to keep a close eye on the competition.”  
  
“And how long do we have before the games start?”  
  
“Oh, some hours, at least. It might be midday before we’re called out,” Dorian told him. “This is a ludii victoria, so we’re essentially fighting in celebration and as a part of several funerals. The first thing they’ll do after the music dies down is give a series of long-winded speeches about the solemnity of the occasion, followed by executions. Then-”  
  
Dorian talked for a bit about the form of the games.  
  
“-and then of course, when the games finally do begin, the first act is less a fight and more setting a number of wild creatures upon someone who’s considered particularly obnoxious to the state. Which, come to mention it, probably means I’m the opening act. Anyway-”  
  
And then the history of the games.  
  
“-followers of Andraste were the original gladiators, which is patently ridiculous, there is reams and reams of evidence suggesting that the games were originally held as far back as Archon Darinius’ time to honor our alliance with dwarves and furthermore-”  
  
And some speculation about the current games.  
  
“-this has to be one of the new antetheaters, you can still see some floor between the bloodstains, and there are hardly any mosaics. It looks like the oldest one in here is depicting Leto, whose career as champion of House Atreides must have ended almost twenty years ago now. Besides-”  
  
He didn’t seem to be able to shut up, actually.  
  
“-cannot begin to express my disappointment that oil wrestling fell out of favor and hasn’t been part of the games since our split from the Southern Chantry.”  
  
Crispin laughed at that, a loud wheezing laugh that set most of the rest of gladiators off. Dorian looked taken aback.  
  
“Well, I’m happy to be such a source of amusement in my final hours,” he said.  
  
“Yeah,” the Bull drawled. “Now we’re all going to remember you as the asshole who barfed up a bunch of history and ended up complaining that he wouldn’t get the chance to try to stick his hand down a man’s pants while covered in oil.”  
  
Dorian smirked. “There are worse legacies I could leave, I suppose.”  
  
He was quiet for a few moments, and then he walked over to the bars separating his cell from the Bull’s.  
  
“I have a favor to ask of you, Bull,” Dorian said.  
  
The Bull hesitated. He wasn’t really in a position to do anyone any favors.  
  
“I understand the futility of asking,” Dorian added. “It’s only- it’s unwise, for people in our position to- to bite back. The Rite of Tranquility precludes that possibility entirely. Some might- there are those who- that- you understand what I’m trying to say, don’t you?”  
  
“You’re worried about Rilienus,” the Bull told him.  
  
“Yes,” Dorian replied. “If you could just… check in from time to time, to see if he’s being- being hurt? If for no other reason than there being someone else who knows about it, even if you can’t actually…”  
  
His voice trailed off miserably.  
  
“Yeah,” the Bull replied. “I can do that.”  
  
“Thank you,” Dorian said, and then settled back against the wall to wait.

* * *

 

They sat through the music: some kind of official opening number, followed by some hymns which Dorian scoffed at but mouthed along to anyway. There was a short speech from the Editore, before she yielded the floor to a more important figure: his name was obscured, but the roar of _Ave, Archon!_ didn’t leave very much doubt about who it was.  
  
“Ah, yes,” Dorian said with a frown. “Of course he’s here.”  
  
The Archon’s speech was longer, as were the speeches that followed his. They were in Tevene, and though their voices had been amplified, they were far enough away that the Bull was having a hard time even keeping track of the number of speakers. He heard a few military titles- legate, tribune- and there were at least six different people called praetor and twice as many magisters, along with the Black Divine.  
  
There was a slight pause after the Black Divine had spoken, and then the screaming started. It didn’t stop for a long time.  
  
“Is it supposed to last this long?” the Bull asked, as minute after long minute stretched out of unbroken screaming and wailing.  
  
“Treason is traditionally considered an immolating offense,” Yenko said with a shrug. “We’re just lucky that we’re not important enough to warrant that honor. Or that we’re Dorian.”  
  
Dorian didn’t respond. He had his eyes closed, and his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists.  
  
The Bull had seen people burn to death. It didn’t take this long, and people passed out from the smoke and the pain before much time had passed. What were they doing, just lighting up dozens upon dozens of people, one at a time, one person starting to scream as they burned even as the people before them had already died or fallen unconscious?  
  
Eventually the screaming stopped. The crowd roared its approval, though whether that was over the deaths or the circus act that started up immediately afterwards, accompanied by upbeat music, it was impossible to tell.  
  
“Your previous owners weren’t very into the games, were they?” Iris asked him, because apparently he wasn’t schooling his features very well.  
  
“If they were, they didn’t bother me with it,” the Bull replied.  
  
Thankfully, there weren’t any more questions about his fake past. That might have something to do with the way one of Marini’s guards had unlocked Dorian’s cell and tossed a length of cloth at him. “You’re on next. Get dressed.”  
  
“In what?” Dorian protested, holding up the cloth with a look of disgust on his face.  
  
“If you won’t wear it, I’ll take it back,” the guard threatened. “Otherwise, get dressed and get out here.”  
  
Dorian sighed, and wrapped the cloth around himself, tucking it around his hips and thighs until his dick was no longer flapping around in the breeze. It didn’t do much else for him.  
  
“If you asked, I bet Decimus would still take it back,” Crispin told him.  
  
Dorian’s nose wrinkled in disgust as the cell door closed behind him. “At this point, I don’t want to dignify it with the effort.”

Marini came back down the stairs a few minutes later, some of her hair escaping her hairdo and her face flushed from the exertion. “Good, you’re dressed.”  
  
“Yes, and you’ve managed to find the one garment even I can’t make look good,” Dorian replied.  
  
Marini backhanded him across the face, hard enough to send him stumbling back half a step and leave an imprint of her ring against his cheek.  
  
“Do not interrupt me,” she ordered.  
  
Dorian managed to stop himself from hitting back just in time, forcing his fist down by his side as he straightened back up. He glared, and remained silent.  
  
After a minute, Marini seemed to realize that was the best she was going to get, and continued. “As I was saying, you’ll be fighting beasts. No one will tell me which beasts, but I have heard that the menagerie is housing a bereskarn, two brontos, several quillbacks and giant spiders, along with a pack of rabid mabari for today’s fights. You have no sponsor, so I’m afraid all I can give you is this.”  
  
She selected a plain wooden quarterstaff from the weapon’s rack and handed it to him. Dorian took it was the same incredulous disgust that he’d taken the loincloth.  
  
“If you don’t want it…” the guard from before began: Decimus, that was his name. He was going to have to remember that.  
  
“You’ll take it back, yes I-” Dorian cut himself off, eyes darting between Decimus and Marini. When neither one of them moved to hit him, he finished in a more subdued tone. “I’ll take it, thanks.”  
  
“Beyond that, you’ll just have to rely on what the Maker gave you,” Marini said, pulling out the control rod for Dorian’s collar and fiddling with it.  
  
Judging from the expression on Dorian’s face, she’d turned the collar so far down that it might as well have come off.  
  
“Give the mob a good show,” she told him.  
  
“I sincerely hope you did not buy me under the impression that I would die easily,” Dorian said.  
  
“Then don’t prove me wrong,” Marini said, pointing to the ramp.  
  
Dorian nodded curtly, squared his shoulders, and began the walk into the arena.  
  
That plucky, upbeat circus music was still playing. It stopped, after a moment, and then there was silence.  
  
And then the crowd roared as the band struck up a steady drumroll. Dorian’s match had begun.

* * *

 

The drumroll ended in three booming gong strikes.  
  
“That means he’s facing three creatures,” Iris explained from the cell next to him.  
  
There was an animalistic screech, amplified in the same way the speeches and screaming had been.  
  
“That means they’re quillbacks,” the Bull said.  
  
There was a loud trumpet screech. No one bothered to explain that one: it was obvious that it meant that the fighting had started.  
  
They waited. The Bull took the opportunity to study the lay of the antetheater. Marini stood in the far corner, opera glasses pressed to her eyes: some kind of enchantment, he would guess, that allowed her to see the match while she was all the way out here. He didn’t recognize any of the guards wearing Marini colors from the ludus, which was probably significant, but he couldn’t quite puzzle out the reasoning right now. Instead, he memorized their faces: the woman with the flail scars all down the side of her face, narrowly missing her eye; the stout, hairy man who looked like he might have some dwarf in him; the young woman who walked with a limp and tried to make it look like a swagger; the lone elf of the group, who looked like she might be able to deadlift the Bull; and the man Crispin had identified as ‘Decimus’, the oldest of the bunch and wearing a fancy epaulet on his right shoulder. He supposed that made him the boss.  
  
There was another trumpet blast, followed by a loud uptick in jeering from the crowd.  
  
“What-” the Bull began.  
  
“Death. I’m pretty sure he’s killed one of them, not the other way around,” Iris explained.  
  
Good. That was good.  
  
Dorian was probably right about the antetheater being new. All those years of fighting back and forth on Seheron had given the ‘vints plenty of time to build new buildings for the Qunari to take over, which had given the Bull a surprising amount of knowledge about the development on concrete. The floors were made from a mix that had only been introduced during the Dragon Age. They were bloodstained, thick rust-colored blemishes trailing up the ramp from the arena to the little medical station, staffed by a female elven healer with an ‘L’ branded on her cheek.  
  
A clash of cymbals. The crowd cheering.  
  
“They’ve scored a hit,” Iris reported, before he could ask. “Serious injury- probably on Dorian. I don’t think they bother with the creatures’ injuries.”  
  
The Bull nodded.  
  
There wasn’t anyone from the other luduses that stood out to him as a threat, and the amphitheater guards kept a closer eye on their privately-employed counterparts than the gladiators. The gladiators only half-filled the cells: twenty-six people spread out between sixty cages. Some of the other antetheaters were larger, and probably had even more cells for even more gladiators. He wondered how many gladiators the complex could hold at any one time, and what the point was of having that many people fight each other.  
  
Another trumpet blast. More jeering.  
  
“I think that was Dorian’s kill, not Dorian’s death,” Iris said slowly.  
  
“Do you think he-” Crispin began.  
  
Yenko was already shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. Even if he does manage to kill the last quillback, the archers will cut him down."

They had archers, to end a beast hunt if the hunters died before the animals, and to keep large groups of gladiators from starting a revolt in the amphitheater. Dorian had said something about that, when he was babbling before. It was on what looked like the newest mosaic too: a drake roaring up at the sky from on top of several dead bodies, as arrows hailed down upon it from all sides, enchanted with ice.  
  
Cymbals and cheering again. Dorian was fighting with two serious injuries now.  
  
The guards started rousing gladiators for the next match: Yenko was outfitted, along with a few more people from the other luduses. The other owners started trickling back down, moving at a much more sedate pace than Marini had: Marini remained where she was, her eyes still glued to her opera glasses.  
  
The trumpet blasted for a third and final time. The jeering started almost immediately, but as Yenko had said, it didn’t matter that Dorian had won. They would cut him down anyway.  
  
_Shok ebasit hissra,_ the Bull thought, closing his eye for a moment. _Meraad astaarit-_  
  
That was as far as he got before the jeering nearly doubled in volume.  
  
Marini lowered her glasses.  
  
“Go get him,” she ordered the healer, and the healer took off down the ramp without bothering to do more than bob her head in the human’s direction.  
  
The Bull stared after her. Dead bodies weren’t going to be brought back to the antetheaters- they were laid out for public viewing one of the main entrance halls, and then burned at the end of the day. He’d had that much explained to him. And even without that, a corpse didn’t need medical attention.  
  
Dorian was still alive. And it was looking like he’d stay that way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This part of the story is new, and not found on the kink meme.

Dorian slept very little the night before his execution, which in all honesty was still more sleep than he’d expected to get. The expectation had very little to do with his own thoughts and anxieties and more to do with the fact that he hadn’t expected that he would be _allowed_ anything approaching a full night’s rest.

For one thing, he wasn’t supposed to survive tomorrow. Everyone knew that, even if the sentence was technically one which people survived. To preserve the illusion- presuming they valued the illusion- it would have to look like he was facing a fair fight: _look_ being the key word, there. It made sense, to stack the odds even more against him, by denying him his rest. For another, this would be the last chance Marini would have to pimp him out under the guise of getting him a sponsor, and he was fairly certain that she could get a pretty price for it.

Not that he hadn’t already recouped his value several times over by now, as it wasn’t like that was a hard feat to manage. _Five gold_. Between several blows to the head, and an overwhelming desire to _not_ , most of the auction he was sold in was a blur, but that one petty, humiliating detail had stuck. He’d gone for five gold. He wasn’t even sure there had been bidding.

If nothing else, he supposed he could make himself content with the fact that Father would have to live with shame of it for far longer than he.

Of course, once he’d thought that, a multitude of the other things he had to content himself with started to demand his attention. Rilienus was Tranquil. Gereon was dead. The Archon was not dead. Dorian was going to die.

He was going to die, and then his death would become a bit of propaganda, a gruesome, cautionary footnote of history. “This is what happens to traitors,” they’ll say. ‘This is what happens to any who challenge the status quo,’ they will not say, but that didn’t change the fact that it is what many of them will mean.

He was going to die, and his death would be ugly, humiliating, and painful. He wouldn’t be able to stop it. He would have very little control over it, or himself. If they didn’t value the illusion of fairness, they might not even let him fight, they might bind him at the ankles and wrists and let whatever it was they’d appointed his executioner tear him to shred while he was unable to mount a defense.

They’d done it before, to others, who had committed far less severe crimes, and had been far less able to defend themselves. He’d watched it once, when he was fifteen or so.

He’d been at the Solas Circle by then, a rather provincial place by the coastal standards he’d been accustomed to. The First Enchanter had been well aware of that perception, and done her best to compensate with enthusiasm, and monthly excursions to places of alleged cultural interest.

One of those places had been the local arena, a sad thing next to the Capitoline, but as he’d never been to any sort of games before he thought it was quite grand.

(A mutual distaste for the Games had been one of the very few things his parents had in common. He may have had to forge his father’s seal in order to have attended this trip in the first place.)

The first several matches were exciting. There had only been one death, but it had seemed like it was a good one to Dorian, who had a great confidence in his own judgement of things he knew nothing about.

And then, there was to be an execution, a sentence of _damnati ad ludum_ , for a slave who had stolen her mistress’ brooch. The platform raised her up, and Dorian got his first glimpse of the girl who had been sentenced to die.

The first thing, and very nearly the only thing, that he had noticed was that she really was a girl, not a young woman. She had been perhaps twelve, or thirteen years old- somewhere on the cusp of puberty. Younger than Dorian had been at the time, and for all his many intents and purposes, he'd been a child still.

Her hands were bound. Maybe her legs too- she’d collapsed on herself, and it was hard to tell.

They’d had red lions, from some privately-owned zoo. _Starved for a week_ the Editore had announced with gusto, and the girl had straightened herself up a bit. She’d bared her neck, as much as possible, and the first beast to reach her had locked his jaws upon it.

She’d died without too much screaming. Dorian managed to keep his lunch. One of the other boys- a Laetan, his name had been Lysias- wasn’t so lucky. Dorian had volunteered to take him to the washroom, and the pair of them had ended up sneaking off while everyone else was busy watching the lions fight over pieces of her increasingly dismembered corpse.

Her name had probably been announced at some point, but Dorian couldn’t recall it. He did remember her owner’s name: Cressidia Renatus. She’d been long since dead when he’d returned to Solas years later, at the head of what might be called a covert advance party, and her heir had been strung up by his slaves once it had been made obvious that the Lucerni had set their sights on that city.

He kept thinking about the girl, though, more and more often as he got older and more aware of just how broken his country was.

Would that be what would happen to him? Would he die quickly and without a fight, would the show be all about which animal got to ingest the biggest part of his corpse, while some poor sod who hadn’t known what to expect lost his lunch over it?

Strangely enough, that was the thought which sent him to sleep.

* * *

He woke up, more or less, before dawn the following morning. It seemed like he was in a fog, unable to focus on anything ahead, merely to take things as they came, and try to soften the impact with the knowledge of what had come before.

There was no breakfast. The bath water was as cold as usual- they weren’t allowed in the caldarium in the morning, even now. He was allowed to be shaved and groomed, losing the scraggly beard and unkempt hair, and gaining back a well-waxed mustache. He’d been expecting the nudity. All the gladiators were naked. It was the custom. That did not mean it sat well with him.

‘At least,’ Dorian thought as they pulled away, ‘I won’t ever have to set foot in this wretched place again.’ As far as silver linings went, he’d found better.

They sat in the back of the wagon, all chained together and silent as they rattled through the early morning murk. The sun was up by the time they entered the city, though they missed most of it by passing beneath the shadow of one of the twin Juggernauts that protected the city.

 _Allegedly_ protected the city, he should say. He thought about saying something, telling them that the Juggernauts were dead and no one quite knew why, but decided against it. It wasn’t widely known, even among the Lucerni. Everyone in the Imperium had been told, and most believed, that the Juggernauts had been deactivated to perform maintenance, and then kept deactivated to allow for the creation of larger markets and such. That they could be reactivated the very moment there was a need. Most people, Dorian included, hadn’t even been alive when they had been functional, and had always known them as silent, waiting guardians rather than mobile weaponry.

It was one of many things which, looking back, Dorian couldn’t believe he’d swallowed without question. But then again, it was a frightening thought, that one of their country’s greatest defenses against outside invasion was a hollow lie.

They disembarked, still naked and chained together, falling into line behind Marini’s sedan, gladiators from other luduses shuffling along with them. It was an uncomfortable walk, made even more uncomfortable by the hostility coming off of the crowd in waves. It puzzled Dorian; he hadn’t exactly expected a warm welcome, but the Lucerni had been very attractive to a large number of Soporati. They’d fought for these people. Shouldn’t there be some sympathy for them on those grounds?

Apparently, there were shoes and shouted accusations as they hurried up into the antetheater. Because, of course, if you were an illiterate peasant whose world consisted only of the areas in and around Minrathous, then all you would know would be what the criers told you.

That and letters of condolences from the legate’s office. Letters that had very likely had to have been read by someone else. Not every soldier had been able to mutiny or desert, after all. Not everyone had wanted to, even, though he would wager that if they were told even a fraction of the truth about the state of the country, most would.

Not that that particularly matter right now.

“We were meant to be helping these people,” he insisted miserably. “We were supposed to be making their lives better.”

That didn’t amount to much either.

* * *

They were shepherded inside, and up to the cell block level. Unchained. Weighed. Measured. Given a cursory health inspection, by an elven healer with the same brand that he and Crispin wore, which was probably why Dorian found her familiar. They’d had to do it four times before it burned into his skin in a matter they found satisfactory. He’d been struggling too hard for it to leave a clean mark the first three times, so they’d healed the burn completely and then tried again until it stuck. He wondered if she’d listened when they told her to stay still.

Locked in his cage, then, and left to wait.

The gawkers arrived before breakfast. Dorian wasn’t sure why he had expected otherwise.

By and large, the taunts were nothing he couldn’t anticipate, and offer his own rejoinders to. They rather lost their sting when he was naked and unable to back his tongue up with force, however.

Erimond was an unpleasant shock. He had, at first, expected that he would come to Marini’s ludus under the guise of patronage, but as time had worn on, it had seemed that Erimond was content to take Marini’s five gold and wash his hands of him.

Apparently, he’d just been busy with other things. Dorian wondered if he’d been in charge of Rilienus’ interrogation as well, or if he’d just stepped in as he implied. It didn’t matter, really, he supposed. The closest thing he had to a pressing concern right now was the matter of why he had never learned to spit properly. He might have been able to aim for Erimond’s face, rather than his shoes.

Dorian missed shoes. It really was a pity the gladiators traditionally fought barefoot.

Once that was done with, breakfast arrived. It wasn’t fruit and gruel, which was the kindest thing Dorian could find to say about it. Admittedly, he wasn’t trying very hard. Once he’d managed to choke down the bread, it sat poorly in his stomach, and he needed to swallow down bile. Nerves, or had that attempt to stack the deck further against him manifested as poison?

No one else seemed to be affected, so it was probably just nerves. Or else the poison had been added by the amphitheater slave, so that it would affect his bread only.

Did it really matter? It would all come to the same end. He was going to die. He was going to die. He was going to die.

“So, how much more crap do we have to sit through, exactly?” the Bull asked.

Grateful for the distraction, Dorian answered him with more or less all he knew about the Games. It was more than he’d thought he’d known; apparently somewhere between being forced to copy out Enchanter Massinissa’s copy of _Panem et Circenses_ line by line and humoring Felix’s bewildering affection for chariot racing in general and the White-and-Greens in particular, he’d picked up rather a lot.

“-which is why I cannot begin to express my disappointment that oil wrestling fell out of favor and hasn’t been part of the games since our split from the Southern Chantry.”

Crispin laughed at that first, followed by most of the rest of their ludus’ fighters, and then all the other gladiators as well. It knocked Dorian out of his stride.

“Well,” he said, feeling wrong-footed for no easily identifiable reason. “I’m happy to be such a source of amusement in my final hours.”

“Yeah,” the Bull drawled. He was smiling slightly, and looked pretty smug for someone whose odds at seeing the end of the day might very well be only marginally better than Dorian’s, depending upon how the crowd felt qunari these days. “Now we’re all going to remember you as the asshole who barfed up a bunch of history and ended up complaining that he wouldn’t get the chance to try to stick his hand down a man’s pants while covered in oil.”

Dorian made himself smirk. “There are worse legacies I could leave, I suppose.”

The Archon was still alive. Gereon was dead. And Rilienus…

The Tranquil didn’t feel pain the way the rest of them did. They didn’t feel humiliation, or fear, or helplessness. They _were_ helpless, though, in many respects. More helpless than any of them, certainly.

And, once Dorian was dead, he was going to have to stay in the ludus, working the massage parlor and whatever else it was that Marini used the Tranquil for. He didn’t know, and the possibilities seemed endless and terrifying.

No one would know to check in with Rilienus, and see that he was well. The Tranquil very rarely had that, especially when they had no family to look after them.

He was going to die. There was no one else after him, unless...

He shuffled over to the bars his cell shared with the Bull’s. “I have a favor to ask of you, Bull,” Dorian said.

The Bull seemed to hesitate, probably meditating on the folly of promising favors, given that he was a slave.

“I understand the futility of asking,” Dorian continued. “It’s only- it’s unwise, for people in our position to- to bite back. The Rite of Tranquility precludes that possibility entirely. Some might- there are those who- that- you understand what I’m trying to say, don’t you?”

“You’re worried about Rilienus,” the Bull replied.

“Yes,” Dorian said, relieved. “If you could just… check in from time to time, to see if he’s being- being hurt? If for no other reason than there being someone else who knows about it, even if you can’t actually…”

Maker, what would Dorian even be able to do, if he was in a position where his survival was a possibility? The first time there was any indication that one of the guards was taking advantage, he’d lose his head entirely, and it would amount to absolutely nothing.

“Yeah,” the Bull replied. “I can do that.”

“Thank you,” Dorian said. Relief robbed him of further words.

Rilienus would have someone at the ludus. That was something good for him to leave behind.

* * *

Predictably the waiting was the worst part.

The opening music, played as everyone found their seats. The introductory hymns, sung in Old High Tevene, so that the lower classes didn’t know what was being said, but did know that they weren’t considered worthy of hearing _and_ understanding the Maker’s words in their original form. Speeches, Tevene flowing quick and fast in its vulgate form, so that the Soporati, at least, might have some prayer of understanding one word in seven. The Archon was there. Of course he was. While Dorian was fairly certain that he had a long list of treasonous crimes this was supposed to be the sentence for, the one he’d been apprehended during was the attempted assassination of the Archon. Why wouldn’t he want to see Dorian die?

He strained his ears to catch the words spoken. The speeches were all very standard, rote things. Probably they were given multiple times a year, for years on end. He couldn’t help but be a little insulted- he really thought that he would have been worth at least an original line or two.

And then the executions began.

Immolation had been the traditional punishment for treason since before Andraste, and for whatever reason they hadn’t discontinued the practice after she’d been killed, even though that was now widely recognized to have been a mistake. He supposed that made the death an honorable one, even if no one would dare to acknowledge it as such.

His most infamous ancestor, Gideon Pavus, had been killed that way. So had Gereon.

They’d heard about it when it happened, months and months ago now. Livia had cried and screamed and tore at her hair and clothes in a frenzy of grief. Felix had gone into shock, which was worse. He required gentle coaxing to eat and drink, to bathe himself and change his clothes, and gentleness was not something which came naturally to Dorian. Swearing revenge was a much more natural act, for all that it had proven impossible to keep his oath.

Erimond had kept the body. It lay, perfectly preserved from blackened, skeletal feet up to the gaunt face forever frozen in a rictus of pain.

“I thought it should stay here,” Erimond had said. “At least until I can get the rest of the family to complete the set.”

Dorian was pretty sure the Erimond hadn’t been trying to goad him into attempt to strangle him with the chain between his manacles, but somehow or another that had happened anyway.

Dorian closed his eyes. He thought he could pick out at least six distinct voices screaming, no more than ten. They screamed for a very long time.

Finally, it was over. The circus act that followed appeared almost immediately after the deaths were declared, and the sound of cheery music filled the whole of the Capitoline.

“Your previous owners weren’t very into the games, were they?” Iris asked.

“If they were, they didn’t bother me with it,” the Bull replied.

Dorian looked down at his hands, and the little white crescents his nails had dug into his palm. No blood. That was good.

He’d planned on sipping the remains of his water allotment as the circus performed, but alas, it wasn’t to be.

He was tossed a length of cloth and told “You’re on next. Get dressed.”

Dorian looked down at the cloth. It was, quite literally, a cloth, with no fastenings or designs to speak of. “In what?”

“If you won’t wear it, I’ll take it back,” Decimus threatened. He was one of surlier guards, Dorian remembered. He’d thought that he’d been watching Dorian rather closely when he’d first arrived, but nothing had ever come from the attention. “Otherwise, get dressed and get out here.”

This was it, then. He was going to die.

Dorian dressed, and waited for Marini. Sure enough, she appeared, seeming more than ready to deliver one last slap, one last petty humiliation.

She also gave him some idea as to what would be killing him, and a quarterstaff. It wasn’t enchanted, or even a proper mage staff meant for channeling, but it was made of cypress wood, fire-hardened and polished.

Cypress was a symbol of mourning, and death. It was as good a channel for necromancy as he was likely to get, under such circumstances. The hardening process would help too- the memory of fire was there, seared into the staff, and he could already sense little wisps drawn to it, waiting across the Veil for Dorian to pull them over as flame. If Marini turned the collar down to even half power, he might be able to put up a decent fight.

“Beyond that, you’ll just have to rely on what the Maker gave you,” Marini said, and then _turned the collar completely off._

Dorian stood there for a moment, stupefied, checking for what spells he could begin to cast, what spirits he could attract and then reform to suit his needs. The collar was still on, and he could feel a very faint hum at the back of his neck- so, not completely nonfunctional then. But whatever it was restraining, it wasn’t his magic.

“Give the mob a good show,” Marini told him.

“I sincerely hope you did not buy me under the impression that I would die easily,” Dorian said. This was much more than he’d thought he would receive. Depending on what was waiting for him, he might even stand a chance of defeating them, even if that would do nothing to change his fate.

“Then don’t prove me wrong,” she said, indicating the ramp that lead to the amphitheater.

Dorian nodded, and left without another word. He had an execution to attend, after all.

* * *

The circus music was still playing when the platform was raised up into the arena. It stopped shortly afterwards, however, once the oversized simulacrum of Dorian had been conjured.

He wondered if it was too childish to try to flip off the Archon in such an obvious manner, and then remembered that he was here to die, and therefore had no incentive to care about other people’s opinion of him. He raised his middle finger. The crowd jeered and shouted as the drumroll began, and a large covered cage was raised into the arena.

This was it. This was what was meant to kill him. This was how he was meant to die.

Dorian turned to face the cage, and waited. The drumroll ended in three strikes of the gong as the cover was pull off of the cage. Three beasts, then- quillbacks, specifically.

Dorian barely recognized them from textbooks and Livia’s descriptions of them from her trips to the Anderfels. They seemed half-maddened already, which might dampen the effects of many of his necromancy-based spells. He didn’t think that they were one of those particularly pesky creatures which had been granted some immunity to flame, though, which was another point in his favor.

Look at that, it was to be a fair fight after all.

The creatures screeched. So did the trumpet, as the cage was opened and they spilled out into the arena proper.

Dorian conjured a barrier, and bared his teeth in an expression no one could possibly mistake for a smile.

‘Let’s see how many of you I can take with me,’ he thought, and allowed the quillbacks to charge.

Only one of them actually did charge him. The other two peeled off, flanking him.

Right. The first order of business would be to thin their numbers a bit, and then to limit their range of motion.

 _Immolate_ was the first spell which leapt to his mind, and he cast it on the charging quillback. It burned, and burned quickly: the spell even managed to set one of the others on fire.

The beast fell, and not a moment later there was another blast of the trumpet. Good. One down. He pulled as much energy from the death as he could, feeding it into his mana. It helped, if not quite enough for what he wanted to do.

The as yet uninjured quillback lunged at him, driving him back. Dorian had the thought that his staff might not be hard enough to parry the thing’s attacks just a second before the reality was upon him, but the staff held up well enough for Dorian to fend it off. He steered himself back away from where the injured quillback had collapsed. If he could simply get them both on the same side of the arena, then maybe a wall of fire might yield some success at keeping them at bay.

He miscalculated. Within minutes, the injured quillback was back on its feet, and circling him.

Despite the relative quality of the quarterstaff, it was not built for channeling magic. Dorian’s mana reserves might be better than average, but they were still limited. It would take time for him to have the energy to summon a wall of fire. He had no choice but to summon lesser fireballs in the hopes of keeping them off of his back, consuming part of the energy in his barrier with every blast. If he could just hold them off for a little while longer, though…

He couldn’t. It was all but impossible to fight one of the quillbacks off with just his staff to rely on; two quickly proved to be too much, as one of the quillbacks managed to take a swipe at his back, with enough force to cause his barrier to fail entirely. Dorian let out a scream as its claws tore the skin off his back.

The cymbals sounded, just in case there was any doubt as to what had happened.

He was going to fall under the force of the blow, and managed, just barely, to turn it into a roll, coming to some feet away from the quillbacks, who were already advancing upon him as he forced himself to his feet.

Gereon had always been on him, in simpler times, to tone down his spells a little. Precision was key, he’d always said: if Dorian would take the time to place his spells a little better, then he could do twice as much damage with half the expended mana.

Dorian had found the idea intriguing in theory, though somewhat lacking in practice. While there had definitely been a marked drop in the amount of wanton property destruction he participated in after he was apprenticed, he found that fighting happened too quickly for anything approaching precision. Besides, people expected a show when he dueled. Who was he to deny them the spectacle?

He wouldn’t say that moment of recalling Gereon’s lecture was one of a lesson learned, so much as it was the spark of an idea.

He had a limited amount of mana. He had left far too much blood on the area’s sands, and more was leaving him with each passing heartbeat. He needed to heal himself, which meant he needed the energy from a death. He needed to kill one of the quillbacks, either with his staff (unlikely) or with his magic (hindered by the lack of proper tools).

 _Precision_ , Dorian remembered, and conjured a fireball directly into the closest quillback’s stomach. It let out a screech, and reared back before collapsing, dead.

Another trumpet sounded. Good. Two down, and the energy from the deceased quillback flowed to him, scabbing over the wounds on his back.

There was little time for it to heal anything further. The final quillback fell upon him in a frenzy, and he needed to channel the remaining energy into conjuring a barrier against it.

It was a desperate, scrabbling fight. The quillback still living was the one he had injured earlier, and it attacked like Dorian had cornered it, even as it made a great deal of progress into cornering him. Things moved too quickly, and just unpredictably enough for him to not be able to repeat his conjuring a fireball in the belly of the beast trick. He tried, but the fireballs all missed, at most searing the outside of the beast, many simply fizzling well away from it.

It was chasing him, more or less. Dorian let it, more or less. It’s injuries were severe enough that it would almost certainly die of them, in time. It was just a matter of making sure that it died before Dorian did. If he could only conserve enough mana for the death blow…

He stopped casting, save for what was necessary to replenish his barrier, and lead the quillback on a merry chase around the arena.

The problem was, of course, that Dorian was injured too, and as the creature tired so too did he. If he wanted to be the one to end this, then he needed to do it quickly.

If he burned some of his barrier, he had just enough mana to create a searing glyph. If he pushed himself a little more, put on just a little more speed, then he might have enough space to lay down the glyph.

It worked, if not quite as he’d intended. He laid down the glyph, and the quillback ran right into it. When the glyph tossed the beast through the air, however, it didn’t toss the beast anywhere near as high as it should have. The quillback fell against Dorian’s right side, smashing through the remains of his barrier. Dorian fell with another scream; the quillback rolled over him and continued on for several feet before coming to rest in a heap.

Dorian lay on his back, the wind knocked out of him. His eyes stung under the bright light of the artificial sun built into the arena’s ceiling; his mouth filled with blood, which he struggled to swallow. He struggled to breathe around it, and past the pain in his side. It had appeared, registering as nothing more serious than an increase in pressure after the first quillback had left its mark. Now it threatened to crush him.

Over the pounding of blood in his ears, he made out another clash of cymbals. He had been injured again, it seemed.

‘No shit,’ he thought distantly. He waited, but no trumpet sounded. He was still alive, and so was the last quillback.

That wouldn’t do. Dorian propped himself upright, searching for his quarterstaff. It had fallen to the ground a few feet away. He reached for it, and immediately regretting it when the motion caused a stabbing pain to flare up in his right leg.

Dorian collapsed back with another scream. It took him nearly a full minute to get himself back under control enough to see what the problem was. The problem was that one of the quillback’s eponymous quills had broken off of its back and embedded itself in his calf.

Of course it was.

Dorian wiggled his toe, and was momentarily gratified to find that the quill hadn’t done any serious damage to his nerves, before he remembered that it wouldn’t matter very much anyway.

Slowly, cautiously, he dragged himself over to his staff, and used it to haul himself to his feet. He almost immediately collapsed, his vision going all spotty, and the little bread he’d managed to ingest that morning threatened to come up again. He waited it out, and then forced him to turn and face the nearest quillback.

The creature was, if anything, in even worse shape than Dorian. It lay on its side, covered in burns, breathing heavily but otherwise silent and still. Dorian nearly pitied it.

He focused, and was able to manifest a fireball in the quillback’s skull. At last, the third and final trumpet sounded.

Dorian captured the energy for the death, sinking it all into easing his breathing, and keeping himself standing, and tried to make peace with this being his end.

They would have to lie, now. They would circulate etching of him laying on his back with the quill embedded in his leg and then they would imply that he bled out. They would speak of him as though he met his end screaming and torn to shreds by wild animals. And then the would write in the diaries, or to trusted friends and family who could not be here today, about the truth. And someday, someone else, someone who knew that Tevinter needed to be changed, would perhaps come across that information, and perhaps realize how many lies their country was built upon.

They would have to lie. Rilienus had the only scrap of protection Dorian could provide for him. Gereon might be unavenged, but at least Dorian had managed to keep Livia and Felix as far away from the line of fire as possible. The Archon would die, if not by the Lucerni’s hands, then by his magisters’, who must already be tiring of all the emergency powers Radonis had given himself since the rebellion started.

It wasn’t quite the legacy he wanted to leave, but it wasn’t what his father had wanted, either. It was another point in its favor.

This was it. He was going to die.

Dorian planted his feet more firmly in the sands as the votes for his death were given an official tally: unvocalized, oddly enough, but made clear by the large simulacrums showing the thumbs down. He dug his staff in too, to keep himself from swaying over. He was going to die, but he wasn’t going to die laying down.

He waited. The voting reached the High Box at the very apex of the amphitheater, and then a final ghostly thumbs down was displayed.

Wow. He was shocked, truly. He never would have guessed that was coming.

He could see the flash of metal-tipped arrows along the ramparts that separated the arena from the majority of the stands. He heard the creak of sinew as a hundred bows were drawn back- the full compliment of the Capitoline's archers. He supposed he should be flattered by the number.

Dorian lifted his chin, and focused all the spite he could muster on the Archon, to keep the fear from his face. Thankfully, spite was not in short supply.

He waited. The expected arrows never came. Instead, the thumbs down in the High Box suddenly changed to a thumbs _up_.

“ _What the fuck?_ ” Dorian yelped. He was hardly the only one. Why would the Editore change her mind, when the crowd was so set against him? When the bloody Archon wanted him to die, and-

The Archon was here. The Archon could supersede the Editore’s opinions, and not have to answer to the mob. The Archon-

Why, after all of this, would the Archon want him alive?

“Come on,” said the summa rudis, appearing behind him. Dorian turned, noticing for the first time that some of the amphitheater’s workers were in the arena with him, clearing away the dead quillbacks. “It’s time to leave.”

“This isn’t what’s supposed to happen,” Dorian blurted out. He was supposed to die. He’d made as much peace with that as he ever made with anything.

“Ask your master to take it up with the Editore,” the summa rudis said impatiently, shoving Dorian towards the platform.

Dorian stepped onto it, and was lowered down. The last thing he saw before the trap door closed over him was the shocked expression of the face of his oversized simulacrum.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This part of the story was posted on the kink meme in the period of February 21st- May 20th 2016.

Dorian limped in, leaning heavily between the quarterstaff clutched in one hand and the healer under his other arm, just after Yenko and the others had marched out in preparation for their match. It was another beast hunt, but this one had everyone armed and armored, and most of them were expected to survive it, unlike Dorian.  
  
Dorian looked like crap. He was covered in dust, sweat and ash, and splattered with gore. There were three long bloody lines gouged out of his back, and a quill jutting out of his right calf: judging by the sound of his breathing he’d busted a couple of ribs too. He and the healer limped over to the medical station: the quarterstaff got passed back to Decimus to go back on the rack, and Marini took out the control rod for Dorian’s collar and turned it back up. Dorian grunted as he was seated on the bench, and the floor around them glowed, as did the healer’s collar, as she began her work.  
  
Healing magic was a funny thing. Not half an hour later Dorian was back in his cell, a bowl of stew and half a loaf of crusty bread held on his lap. He’d been completely healed- she didn’t even let him scar- had wiped himself down, and been given a new loincloth. He still kind of looked like crap. There was a grey tinge to his skin, and his eyes were glassy. After he sat back down on his cot, he ignored both the pitcher of water that had been left for him and the meal in his hands and stared blankly, straight ahead into the empty cell across from him for a long time.  
  
“Am I seriously still alive right now?” he asked, after the round Yenko was playing in had already scored five kills and three major injuries. His voice sounded weird, flat and distant.  
  
“It sure looks that way, big guy,” the Bull replied.  
  
Dorian cautiously placed his food on the end of the cot and felt his own pulse at his wrist.  
  
“Is there really any chance you could not be alive?” Iris asked.  
  
Wordlessly, Dorian reached up to his own neck, and checked his pulse there.  
  
“Well, he is a necromancer, you know,” Crispin told them.  
  
Dorian continued to stare straight ahead, though his brow furrowed slightly.  
  
“Is that the mages that do creepy shit with dead things?” the Bull checked, hoping to get a rise out of the guy.  
  
“Pretty much, yeah,” Crispin replied. “So, really, who knows what’s sitting in the cell next to you.”  
  
“That,” Dorian said, sounding annoyed. It was a much better tone of voice for Dorian to use than the one he’d been using before. “Is not how necromancy works.”  
  
“Are you sure? Because I don’t want to be sitting in a cell next to an undead demon,” the Bull said.  
  
“I’m a necromancer, and therefore certifiably sure.”  
  
“Don’t they take away all your certificates when you become a slave?” Crispin. “I mean, I know mine were.”  
  
“I refuse to recognize the legitimacy of that revocation,” Dorian retorted. “A bit of bureaucracy to make my being murdered in public more socially acceptable does not negate my knowledge of how simulacrums work.”  
  
“And you’re sure you’re not one of those things?” the Bull asked.  
  
“Oh, for Andraste’s sake, just-” Dorian rolled his eyes and stood, careful to sidestep his food. He walked over to the bars separating their cells and stuck his arm through. “Check my pulse, if you don’t believe me.”  
  
The Bull looked down at his arm, and then back over his shoulder at Crispin. “If I touch that, am I going to get possessed?”  
  
“No!” Dorian protested indignantly. Crispin just laughed at him.  
  
The Bull wasn’t actually worried about being possessed, but he made a show of gingerly wrapping his fingers around Dorian’s wrist, and was rewarded with the sight of Dorian rolling his eyes.  
  
“Well, you certainly feel alive,” the Bull told him. He was warm, the shift of muscles beneath his fingers seemed natural and unstrained, and his pulse was strong, if a little fast.  
  
Dorian huffed a little, but didn’t pull his hand away. Probably he needed the contact: the Bull was happy to provide that.  
  
“How?” he asked. “How am I still alive?”

“You tell me,” the Bull replied. “We couldn’t see anything from down here, though it sure sounded like a hell of a fight.”  
  
The trumpet signaled another death, hopefully not Yenko’s.  
  
“It- I mean. I know how, the Archon gave me the thumbs up. He- the crowd wanted me dead, but his wishes supersede even those of the Editore, so I- but _why_?” Dorian asked.  
  
The Bull shrugged. This wasn’t a good spot for a serious discussion about politics, not when they were caged up, exposed, and surrounded by guards. It was probably best to keep it light. “Maybe this is his way of telling you that he respects you.”  
  
“The last time the Archon and I were in proximity, I was trying very hard to kill him by blowing up the bridge we were standing on,” Dorian said. “I did blow up the bridge. It’s still blown up, if the convoluted route we took into the city is any indication.”  
  
“Maybe this is his way of telling you that was a good shot?”  
  
“The Archon, who I tried to explode,” Dorian insisted, bristling a bit. “ _The fucking Archon, Bull!_ ”  
  
The Bull shrugged again. Dorian still hadn’t taken back his hand. After a moment, he sagged against the bars.  
  
“Bull,” he said, pitching his voice lower. “I wasn’t sentenced to immolation or Tranquility. I was sentenced to this. If the plan isn’t to have me killed by wild animals for the amusement of the general populace, then what _is_ the plan? How long does this go on?”  
  
“Well, you’re going to have to break it up now, because Iron Bull’s on next,” Decimus interrupted them, holding up his armor.  
  
Dorian’s hand twisted in his grip, and then gave the Bull’s a gentle squeeze. “Good luck. Fight well.”  
  
“Thanks,” the Bull replied, and started dressing.

 

 

He’d been fitted with and practiced in this armor before. It wasn’t very good work: it kind of reminded him of training on Par Vollen, practice battles fought by practice soldiers in practice armor and weapons made by blacksmiths still new to their role. The horns were a different matter.  
  
“If Aulus was less of a cheapskate perhaps we would have had time to get these properly fitted and adjusted,” Marini grouched. They really weren’t a very good fit: the ends didn’t quite match up with his stubs, and the skullcap thing that kept them from falling apart was a little too tight. They were smaller than his real ones, but much heavier. Or maybe he just wasn’t used to the weight anymore.  
  
“You’ll just have to make do,” Marini continued. “Try not to let them fall out? That would be unspeakably embarrassing.”  
  
“I’ll do my best, ma’am,” the Bull replied.  
  
Marini sighed, and motioned for him to stand. The Bull rose up from where he’d been kneeling, and suppressed the urge to touch his horns when the motion made them wobble. Marini handed him an axe, and he took it.  
  
“This is a pageant fight,” Marini explained as he examined the blunted edge of his weapon. “No one should be killed, and killing even by accident will do you no favors. If you win- or place highly enough- you advance to the next round: if you lose, the mob’s response determines whether or not you’re out of the running.”  
  
The Bull nodded. “Any advice, ma’am?”  
  
“It’s a show match,” Marini repeated. “Give them a show, and they’ll fall at your feet.”  
  
The Bull nodded, and left with a handful of other fighters from the other luduses. There were a few that stood out: a muscular human woman with a scarred face who was tall enough that the bun on her head would probably tickle his chin, the red-haired sullen-looking elf who held himself like a Fog Warrior in particular.  
  
They walked down the ramp in silence, passing Yenko’s group on the way up. Yenko himself was alive and walking without help: he looked tired and dirty, but otherwise unharmed. The Bull nodded to him as they passed.  
  
The ramp lead down to a single corridor, cramped and with low enough ceilings that the Bull had to crouch to avoid scraping his horns on them. That opened up into a larger room, with other corridors (probably leading from the other antetheaters, judging by the gladiators exiting them) visible and a large cage in the center.  
  
They were all herded into the cage. The doors had barely slammed shut when there was a the sound of rushing water as it began to rise.  
  
“Hydraulics,” one of the other gladiators explained. “Let’s hope that the Editore hasn’t been skimming the maintenance funds, or else we might have a repeat of the Mass Drowning of 9:14 Dragon.”  
  
“You have a lot of mass drowning here?” the Bull asked.  
  
“Seven in past fifty years or so,” the gladiator informed him cheerfully. One of the women smacked him over the head.  
  
“Shut the fuck up, Wilbur, you’re scaring the novices,” she drawled. “Don’t worry, I’m more likely to kill you than the water.” She turned to see who she was speaking to, and did a double-take when she noticed the Bull. “Maybe not you, you’re a real ugly looking motherfucker.”  
  
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” the Bull replied.  
  
There was a loud cranking noise as the ceiling withdrew, and then the Bull got his first glimpse of the arena.

The arena’s floor was still a good story or so below ground level. There were stands there, reserved for important dwarven families and the Ambassadoria, if he recognized the names and crests correctly: the name ‘Tethras’, for example, defaced but still, just barely, legible. Those were placed behind enchantments of some kind, the air shimming with barrier to keep anything from the arena from attacking the spectators. Most of the crowd was above ground level, roaring from their perches on the stands lining the inside of the sphere. They were separated from the dwarven spectators by ramparts overlooking the arena: they were separated from the magisters and other important guests by the fact that they had their own private boxes, attached to the ceiling, out of which shone artificial sunlight.  
  
At the far end of the arena, he could see amphitheater workers carting out a dead bronto. They were dressed in dull, sand-colored clothing that blending in with the arena: if the Bull squinted he could make out similarly dressed people on the ramparts.  
  
They waited out the end of the fanfare, and then, suddenly things got really weird.  
  
“Are those demons?” the Bull demanded, watching as, one-by-one, giant-sized images of the each of the gladiators was summoned to the top of the ramparts, to thunderous applause.  
  
“They’re spirits. A modified version of the simulacrum,” said one of the mages.  
  
“That’s just wrong,” the Bull said, staring up at the giant demon version of himself. It looked like he felt. “That’s… really fucked up.”  
  
“It makes sure the mob gets a good view,” was the reply.  
  
“Yeah, but _demons_ ,” the Bull complained.  
  
No one responded. That might have something to do with the way the summa rudis had appeared, flanked by his assistants. He sorted them out into two lines, and one by one, they were each incased in a protective barrier. The ones on the Bull’s side were purple. The ones on the other side were green.  
  
“For those of you who are new: the rules for the pageant are simple. One-on-one battles only, fights with members of the opposing team only. If you tap your hand on the sand three times, that’s a forfeit. If your opponent forfeits, you win that round, find another victor to fight. Last man standing wins the round for his teammates: we’ll do the final tally of the score before the next round. The pageant ends when all but one of you has been eliminated. Ready your weapons: you fight at our signal.”  
  
The summa rudis retreats, along with his people.  
  
“So… do we just pick the guy straight in front of us?” the Bull muttered, readying his axe.  
  
“That’s simplest,” says the woman who’d teased him before.  
  
The trumpet blasted. The fight began.

* * *

 

Show fighting was similar to actual fighting in the way sundew and stardew were similar. Yeah, they were both plants, but one ate rats, birds, and lizards and stank like rotten meat, and the other produced sweet, juicy fruits that were just nutritious enough that you could justify getting them on your fruit ration card, rather than the much smaller one for sweet treats.  
  
He wasn’t really sure which kind of fighting was the sundew and which was the stardew in that metaphor. They were different, and it left him feeling unsettled.  
  
For one thing, “pick the guy directly in front of you” might be the simplest way to do things, but it sure as fuck wasn’t the way everyone else was operating. One of the sneakier humans that had ended up in the other lineup came at him from his right while he was charging for the elf opposite him. It didn’t work, of course, but if he’d actually been wet behind the ears then taking the woman’s advice might have done him in.  
  
Later, he wondered if that was on purpose. Maybe she knew the human who had tried to blindside him; maybe she just didn’t like Qunari.  
  
It wasn’t something he could afford to think about much at the time, though. He knocked the other guy flat on his back with his axe: the other man tapped out, and he moved on, as instructed.  
  
The other thing that kept tripping him up was the way they were fighting. One-on-one only meant that he wasn’t being swarmed, but it also meant that he had to be careful how he swung. It was play fighting, really, except he wasn’t a kid playing with other kids, he was a killer fighting with other killers. He was surrounded by people who fought like ‘Vints, who fought like Fog Warriors, who fought like desperate rebels, who fought like deserters and Tal-Vashoth. And he could only fight one at a time, while every instinct he had was screaming at him to take as many out as he could before things really went sideways.  
  
Tapping out didn’t sit well with him either, especially when he had to turn his back on them afterwards. It felt like he was leaving himself open to get taken out, like he was just deciding to die.  
  
He didn’t like that feeling one bit.

He was the last man standing on the purple side. There were three greens left when that happened: he could feel the eyes of the other two on him as he fought the first guy to a standstill.  
  
Those last two fights were the hardest. The first one was an elven man, stubborn and flexible: Bull had trouble getting past his shield, let alone dealing with the curved blade of his sword that kept trying to poke at him from the weirdest fucking angles.  
  
He was exhausted by the time that guy had tapped out. His last opponent was not exhausted. She was fast: constantly dancing into an out of his range, landing a series of glancing blows before leaping out of the way of his axe.  
  
He had no choice but to follow after her, and tired as he was, he was still Hissrad underneath it all. He knew she was herding them towards something: it took him time, but eventually he spotted it: someone’s broken shield has been left in the sand. If he stepped on it, it would throw him off, which would be when she would move in for the kill.  
  
Once he knew what she was doing, he could plan for it. He let himself be herded towards the shield, and then, when the moment came where he was supposed to step on it, he stepped off to the side instead.  
  
It was kind of an awkward stance, and she adjusted quickly. Her daggers got in one last scratch before the flat of his axe caught her in her midriff. She fell flat on her back, and the Bull leapt forward.  
  
He rested the blade of his axe against her throat, and waited. After a moment, she smirked, and tapped out.  
  
Guess that meant he’d won.  
  
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! WE HAVE OUR VICTOR: THE IRON BULL!!!”  
  
There was a thunderous applause. A chant was quickly taken up by the stands: “Iron Bull! Iron Bull!”  
  
Well, at least he didn’t have to worry about his boys not recognizing him with the new rack. Most of Minrathous would know where the Iron Bull was by nightfall.  
  
“Smile,” the summa rudis hissed. “And bow, or wave, or something you uncultured beast.”  
  
The Bull was in a contrary mood, and blew the stands a kiss instead. Far above him, the demon in his shape mimicked the motion.  
  
The crowd was still laughing when he was lowered back down beneath the arena’s floor.

* * *

 

He passed Iris in the tunnels: she was outfitted in leather armor and carrying a pair of daggers and gave him a professional little nod when their eyes met. Dorian was eating his lunch when the Bull reached their portion of the antetheater. He paused for a moment to smile at him, obviously relieved to see him back in one piece.  
  
Marini’s smile was wider, and very smug. “I knew you were a good investment,” she said, watching as the Bull’s horns were removed once again. “I knew it. Your first match, and you _won_.”  
  
“Just doing my part, ma’am,” the Bull replied.  
  
She laughed, which was exactly the response he was looking for.  
  
Once he’d wiped himself down and been given his meal, he sat back down on the cot in his cell. It was a small, creaky thing- he probably wouldn’t be able to lay down on it. He could barely sit on it. Hopefully, he wasn’t spending the night, because if he was, he’d be spending it on the floor, and sleeping on concrete was a good way to get the chills.  
  
As he sat down to eat, the elf he’d pegged as a Fog Warrior before watched him from his cell, eyes narrowed.  
  
“You did get your own meal, right kid?” he asked, because now that he knew he wasn’t going to be fighting him again anytime soon, he could realize that he was maybe all of twenty years old, and probably not even that.  
  
“You’re a Qunari,” was the reply, spat out with a surprising vehemence.  
  
“Is that not obvious without the horns?” Bull asked.  
  
“You’re a soldier of the Qun,” the guy clarified, which at least explained the glaring.  
  
It also kind of put the Bull on the spot, though only kind of. He hadn’t exactly been hiding the fact that he knew how to swing an axe, even if he’d been vague enough about his past- even to Dorian- to leave the impression that he’d worked out in the fields somewhere. It was only surprising that none of the ‘Vints had called him out on it first.  
  
And that the ‘Vints came to his defense.  
  
“Half the Qunari slaves in the Imperium were captured on Seheron,” Hillarion told him.  
  
“It’s not like he’s going to be reporting back to the Arishok from in here even if they would take him back,” Mara added.  
  
“I’ve been here a long time,” Bull said, which wasn’t quite a lie. Just misleading.  
  
The Fog Warrior grunted.  
  
“It’s true,” Dorian argued. “I’m from Qarinus. Far more people coming from Seheron come as chattel than they ever did as raiders.”  
  
“He knows,” the Bull said. “You’re a Fog Warrior, right?”  
  
“I was,” he said shortly, turning away at last.  
  
“I always kind of admired the Fog Warriors,” the Bull said. “They always seemed to go out of their way to avoid hurting innocents.”  
  
“You’d be surprised how easy that is, when you don’t go around kidnapping people’s children and indoctrinating them,” the Fog Warrior snapped.  
  
Which… okay. He hadn’t liked that part either. But what was the alternative, letting them grow up to be the sort of person who would snarl at a fellow captive, while the ‘Vints were right there, holding the keys to their cages?  
  
The Qun was very good at making you see the bigger picture, the greater good. It was good at relieving you of personal baggage to carry, so that you could deal with the rest of the world. The guy probably had plenty of reasons to hate the Qun, but that wouldn’t help anyone in here.

“Please,” Dorian said with a roll of his eyes. “There isn’t a single person in any of these cages who’s here because they approve of that sort of thing.”  
  
“I don’t know, I can think of a few magisters who could be separated from their families,” Hillarion remarked.  
  
That killed the conversation for a moment, and then Crispin snorted. “I can’t believe it.”  
  
“You can’t believe what?” Dorian asked with a long-suffering sigh.  
  
“You aren’t immediately leaping to the defense of your fellow magisters and informing us that they aren’t all like that,” Crispin explained.  
  
“Why would I do that?” Dorian asked. He sounded like he was trying to sound confused, but mostly it came out as defensive. “He specified ‘a few’.”  
  
“Ha!” Crispin retorted.  
  
“Besides, I’m not, nor have I ever been, a magister,” Dorian continued.  
  
“Your father is,” Crispin pointed out.  
  
Dorian made a disparaging noise in the back of his throat. “My parents loathe one another, I’m their only child, and I’ve been disowned. Separating them would be doing them a favor, truly.”  
  
“You know what I think?”  
  
“Is there any way to stop you from telling me?”  
  
“I think being enslaved has made you realize what the rest of us all mean when we complain about magisters,” Crispin said, not without glee.  
  
“Oh please,” Dorian said, rolling his eyes again. “She’s not even a magister.”  
  
That was a step too far for Marini. They figured that out real quick when Dorian was suddenly spread eagle on the ceiling, his eyes bulging, unable to make a sound. The Bull yelped and leapt back. He wasn’t the only one.  
  
Marini took her time walking over to the edge of the cell, the sound of her steps sounding very loud against the sudden hush that had enveloped the antetheater. It was theatrical, a power play, a game, just like everything else.  
  
“I may not be a magister,” Marini said. “But I do own you. You’d do well to remember it.”  
  
She gave a little extra push with her magic, and Dorian managed a gurgle. A vessel in his right eye had popped, and it was turning bright red. Then she released him, and he fell into a crumpled heap on the floor of his cell, gasping for breath.  
  
“I trust I’ve made my point,” Marini said, before deliberately turning her back on him to address Hillarion and Crispin. “There will be no seditious talk. Is that clear?”  
  
“Yes, Mistress,” they both replied, clearly terrified. They weren’t the only ones.  
  
Marini sniffed, and walked back to where she’d left her opera glasses. It took Dorian a few minutes, but he managed to pull himself together and heave himself back onto his cot.  
  
Iris’ match ended a few minutes later. Hillarion had been given his armor and was being handed his weapon when she returned, grinning triumphantly.  
  
She did a double take when she saw Dorian, who was just beginning to show massive, purple bruises all over his body, and had scraped his arm bloody when he fell. “What happened to you?” she asked.  
  
“Don’t,” both Hillarion and Yenko cautioned her.  
  
“We’re all staying very quiet right now,” the Bull explained. In the cell next to his, Dorian nodded his head silently, his lips pressed together in a thin line.  
  
“Alright,” Iris agreed in a small voice, and sat down to eat her meal without doing more than nod as appropriate to Marini.  
  
The members of the other luduses talked among themselves, but they remained silent for the rest of the day.

* * *

 

Predictably, Dorian was the one who broke their silence.  
  
It was late: the sun had set, and the games had ended. Hillarion and Crispin had both gone out, and then Yenko had gone out again, along with the other members of Marini’s ludus that the Bull wasn’t really friendly with. The spectators were still being let out of the stands, one section at a time so as to not cause a stampede. The music was still playing, but they must have been onto the cheap seats now- Marini and the other owners had left, and the snatches of conversation he could catch were more in Trade than Tevene.  
  
The amphitheater’s staff had a changing of the guard. The new staff came with a fresh cauldron of soup and platter of bread. Following the example of the other gladiators, the Bull picked up his bowl from lunch and held it out through the vertical gap to be refilled.  
  
When Dorian tried that he was shot down immediately.  
  
“None for him,” Decimus called. The amphitheater slave moved onto the Bull without comment.  
  
“Why not?” Dorian demanded.  
  
“Boss’s orders,” Decimus said cheerfully. “If you want to eat her food, you shouldn’t have insulted her.”  
  
Dorian looked down at himself incredulously. He was still covered in bruises, and it was obvious by now that he wasn’t going to be healed until morning, if he was going to be healed at all. The healer had left with the rest of the amphitheater’s day crew, after all. “Was the rest of this somehow not enough?” he asked.  
  
“Apparently not,” Decimus replied. “Tell you what, though: she said no soup for you, but you can still have your portion of the bread tonight if you can use the correct password.”  
  
He held a loaf of bread out tauntingly in front of the bars of Dorian’s cage. For a moment Dorian said nothing, calculating the need for food against his pride. Then he sighed.  
  
“May I please be allowed my portion of the bread?” he asked, his tone deliberately flat.  
  
“You may,” Decimus said. He held the bread up to the bars, but didn’t let go when Dorian wrapped his fingers around it. “But you should know that the correct password is ‘Master’.”  
  
The Bull was pretty sure that Decimus was going to jerk the bread back, but Dorian was quick enough to take it from his slackened fingers before he could do so, glaring all the while.  
  
“Don’t look so sour!” Decimus chided, returning to his post. “You only have to say it for the rest of your life- not long at all!”  
Dorian continued to glare as he shuffled back to his cot.  
  
“You know, I think Marini prefers being addressed as ‘Mistress’,” the Bull offered.  
  
Dorian transferred his glaring over to him. “I despise everyone in this antetheater,” he declared, and began to eat.

* * *

 

It wasn’t long after that when the Bull could hear thumping noises from above them, and then the sounds of a harp being played. He could hear people climbing the stairs just out the entrance to their part of the antetheater, and snatches of Tevene.  
  
“Is that anything to do with us?” he asked.  
  
“Probably not,” Dorian said. “Maybe one of us might be asked to go up there and join the party, but I doubt it. None of us are notable enough to warrant a request for an appearance. Maybe someone from one of the other luduses, but I think we’re all at similar levels of insignificance.”  
  
“Not even you?” the Bull asked.  
  
“No. Well, they might _want_ to drag me up there for another round of abject humiliation, but I imagine they’re all as shocked by my survival as I am. They’ll wait until some kind of consensus as to why the Archon wants me alive can be reached,” Dorian said. “Similarly, they probably want to meet _you_ , seeing as you won the pageant. But for tonight, at least, they’ll want to feel out how everyone else feels about the fact that you’re Qunari.”  
  
“Does everyone know you’re from Seheron?” Hillarion asked.  
  
Iris, who’d missed that conversation, perked up at the new information.  
  
“Well, I’m sure they know now,” the Bull said, gesturing to the guards. “But Marini didn’t ask before, so I didn’t tell her.”  
  
“Doesn’t she have your papers?” Iris asked.  
  
“They couldn’t find my previous owner.” Because he didn’t have one, not that he was going to let anyone know that. He’d thought about claiming that Krem’s family owned him- things amount to a flaming pile of nug shit between Krem and his mother, but she took the money he sent, and would be a point of contact- but if they hadn’t managed to scrap enough together to buy his father’s freedom, then she certainly wasn’t going to buy anyone else. “I’m not even sure who it was. I was really drugged up for that auction, and my Tevene’s kind of crap when it comes to shit that you wouldn’t hear on the battlefield.”  
  
That was how it had been when he’d come to Tevinter on assignment after the reeducators had done their thing. It had all been set up for him to get into House Themiskolos, so he could collect information, and eventually, open the front doors.  
  
Between the Tal-Vashoth corpse they’d left in the ruins of the Themiskolos Estate and the missing eye and horns he had now, he was pretty sure that no one was going to recognize him and connect him with those deaths. Still, those memories had a purpose now, so long as he was careful about the details.  
  
“You’ve really no idea?” Dorian asked.  
  
The Bull shrugged. “He got referred to as the Master, which is how I know it was a guy. Beyond that, I never really heard a name.”  
  
“There weren’t any marks? I mean, you weren’t branded, I noticed,” Crispin said.  
  
“Yeah. I think everyone knows that I’d stick out if I tried to run,” the Bull replied.  
  
“But do you remember anyone else being marked?” Crispin pressed. “Or anything else?”  
  
“There were a lot of peacocks around,” the Bull replied.  
  
That was apparently the wrong heraldic animal to pull out of his ass. All eye from their ludus turned to Dorian. Most of the gladiators were looking at him, whether they belonged to Marini or not. Dorian looked a little like he’d been pinned to the ceiling again.  
  
“You- you weren’t in Qarinus, were you?” he asked. “Or Asariel?”  
  
“No. Well, I came in through Qarinus from Seheron, but then I got carted way down south,” the Bull assured him. “I think I might have been sold in Perivantium, but like I said, I was pretty drugged up at the time.” He shrugged. “It was south of Marouthis, that much I know.”  
  
“Well. You weren’t owned by any _close_ relation of mine, at least,” Dorian told him with a bitter snort.  
  
Oh. Right. House Pavus.

“So, no papers, and no way to trace your owner, and you didn’t tell our owner that you’re the spoils of war,” Yenko summarized. “Yeah, you’re not going upstairs tonight. Marini will need to control how that all comes out, before one of the other owners does it for her. Hopefully that doesn’t put her in a mood…”  
  
“At this juncture, I’d be very surprised if she didn’t have plans for everything up to and including the Bull’s previous owner showing up and demanded he be returned,” Dorian said, pointing to his own face. “You can’t do _anything_ involving the Archon without covering every possible weak spot.”  
  
“Yeah, what’s that about?” Crispin asked.  
  
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Dorian said. “I really can’t think of any reason why the Archon would want me alive.”  
  
“But you do think Marini’s in on it,” the Bull pointed out.  
  
“Did she seem surprised when I won?” Dorian asked. “Because by the time I came back, she looked a bit like a gamble had paid off.”  
  
That was… pretty accurate, now that the Bull was thinking about it.  
  
“No, you’re right,” Crispin said slowly. “She’s definitely doing something.”  
  
For a long moment, no one from their ludus said anything. If he hadn’t figured it out before, it was obvious from the expressions on everyone’s face that belonging to someone who would use one of them as a set piece for a game with the Archon was not a good thing.  
  
“When you won, how did you react?” Yenko asked him, breaking the silence.  
  
“I blew the crowd a kiss,” the Bull told him.  
  
“A kiss?” Hillarion asked.  
  
The Bull demonstrated, pulling a ridiculous giggle out of Mara, who wasn’t quite quick enough turning it into a cough to avoid Hillarion’s teasing.  
  
“You’ll be fine,” Yenko assured him.

* * *

 

The Bull thought he might do better if the party going on were to stop. The people coming up and down the stairs kept setting him on edge, and there was the creeping thought that just because it was unlikely that he would be called up to mingle didn’t mean it was impossible.  
  
Also, the floor was as cold as he feared it would be. After a few minutes he gave up, and tried to make himself sleep sitting up on the cot, which still felt way too small. Mostly he just succeeded in giving himself a crick in the neck.  
  
“So, if we’re not getting pimped out, then what’s the point of all this?” the Bull asked.  
  
They were supposed to be asleep. Most of the lamps had been snuffed out, the ludus guards were resting and standing watch in shifts, and the amphitheater guards were playing some kind of dice game in the doorway. Everyone had made some attempt at actually resting by now. Mara was pretty much the only person from their ludus who was succeeding.  
  
Dorian had lain down on his cot about an hour ago. He hadn’t stopped shifting around since, trying to find a position that didn’t press in against his bruises. Judging from the furrowed expression on his face, just barely visible by the light of the torch by the entrance, he was having the same shit luck as the Bull.  
  
It was Iris who answered him. “There are always parties, after the games. Lots of people want to drown their sorrows after losing a bet, or spend their winnings. There’s usually a big one down in the bazaar around the amphitheater, but I can’t hear it.”  
  
“I think someone’s put a sound-dampening ward around the building, so that the rabble don’t disturb the important people with their revelry,” Crispin added.  
  
“There definitely is,” Dorian confirmed. “My father took me to one of these parties once. I think it was suppose to be some kind of reward, but I ended up watching them put up the wards while he droned on and on about my various shortcomings and then went home early.”  
  
“You ever go slumming through the bazaar party?” Iris asked.  
  
“Oh yes, I always enjoyed those. I wasn’t ever particularly fond of the games themselves, but I had a friend who was very enthusiastic about the chariot races, and we came often to enjoy the spectacle of the bazaar. Perhaps a little too much, in his case. I don’t think we ever managed a visit without incident- one time we went and got separated when a duel broke out between supporters of the Tan-and-Reds and Gray-and-Blues. I found him perhaps an hour later by that Subira’s stall- you know, the Rivaini woman with the chocolate liqueurs?”  
  
The Bull did know her- or know of her, at least. She was viddathari, and he’d read her reports.  
  
“Those are those little chocolates with the alcohol inside of them?” the Bull asked, careful to give nothing away.  
  
“Including the little cinnamon fireball ones that are actually capable of getting one drunk and the wyvern-venom ones that make you hallucinate? Yes, exactly those. Felix must have had about a hundred of them. He didn’t know they were alcoholic- he was sick as a dog for _days_.”

“Did you ever go to that other Rivaini place? The one with the actual food?” Crispin asked.  
  
“The one run by the brothers- Dejen and Mekdem?” Hillarion asked.  
  
Dorian snorted. “If they’re truly brothers, then I’ve fathered several children.”  
  
“They made the best akkras though,” Crispin said dreamily.  
  
“They did a mean sembusa too, as I recall,” Dorian said.  
  
“The food here was always great,” Hillarion said. “It was the only place off of Seheron where I could find decent tamarind balls.”  
  
“Turons,” Dorian countered. “I picked my first one up to make a joke, but they’re _delicious_. The best thing Antiva ever produced, in my estimation.”  
  
“I miss souvlaki,” Crispin added. “A good souvlaki always reminded me of home- and this is the only place where you can get decent souvlaki outside of Vyrantium.”  
  
“Do you think they’d have some kind of kottu out there?” sighed one of the gladiators from one of the other luduses.“I mean, they must have, right?”  
  
“They’ve got sweet and savory martabaks, or they did a few years ago,” said someone else. “One of my cousins married they guy who runs the place.”  
  
“I’d kill for some decent fish and chips,” groaned another. “Proper, greasy food that doesn’t burn your mouth with spices.”  
  
“Drunken noodles. Prawns, crabs, octopus, clams… I don’t even care what kind of seafood you make it with any more. I just want some real Seheron-style drunken noodles.”  
  
“Crêpes. Maker, I’d love an actual crêpe, instead of the baklava you make up here. No offense.”  
  
“Za’atar-roasted chickpeas. You think those Rivaini ‘brothers’ carry those? They’d probably make good concession food.”  
  
“Ravioli. We’re in Minrathous and I still haven’t had ravioli in years. That is a _crime_.”  
  
“Coxinha. There’s nothing quite like giblets all mashed together to resemble a choice cut of meat that’s been battered and fried, and I mean that truly.”  
  
“Imqaret. We used to get together as a village to make that by the ton while dates were in season. No one was ever hungry then.”  
  
“Rugelach. The best use of sour cream and poppy seeds ever invented, hands down.”  
  
“No, no, you can’t make me homesick for the Anderfels, that’s not fair. I’m not even from the coast where things aren’t dust-covered shit!”  
  
“Yeah, shut the fuck up, you’re making me hungry!” Iris said.  
  
“You shut up, you actually had dinner,” Dorian moaned.  
  
One of the amphitheater’s guard’s truncheon hit the bars of Dorian’s cell, causing them all to jump a little. Mara even stopped snoring. “Everyone shut the fuck up,” he said. “And if your name’s not Amaryllis, go to sleep.”  
  
Some the guards from another ludus roused the tall woman (Amaryllis?) from her cell- to be brought to the party upstairs, the Bull guessed, though no one said anything.

Conversation didn’t resume. Instead, Mara started snoring again, and on his other side, Dorian laid back down on the cot with a muted grunt of pain. The Bull could hear him shifting around for a while, before he finally nodded off; Crispin was muttering in his sleep a bit, and at some point, someone from another ludus started crying, and someone else comforted her.  
  
The Bull sat with his eyes closed. Hopefully it looked like he was sleeping to any guards who might check. He wasn’t even trying to sleep, though: he was thinking.  
  
He thought about the crowd chanting his name. He thought about Krem’s mother, who took her son’s letters along with his money, maybe even read them. He thought about the viddathari agent codenamed “Subira” who ran a stall right outside the amphitheater.  
  
The Qun wouldn’t send anyone after him, he was pretty sure. Not unless he’d underestimated the power of the Lucerni rebellion to impede the Imperium’s operations on Seheron, and Dorian’s importance to the Lucerni. But if he could make contact with Subira, she might be persuaded to make contact with the Chargers on his behalf. And there was always the chance that Krem’s mother might have recognized him name, and sent word to the Chargers herself, hoping to get more coin from her son, or just keep receiving it. Maybe there might be a way to make contact with her and spur that contact himself.  
  
Those were two avenues of information collecting that hadn’t been open to him before. That was good. That was progress.  
  
That set him at ease enough to fall asleep.

* * *

 

The Bull was woken up in the grey light of predawn by a hissing noise. He cracked his eye open to see what was making that noise- it was the elven healer from yesterday, returned to the antetheater and standing by the now-open door of Dorian’s cell.  
  
“Wake up,” she was hissing. “Wake up, I need to heal you before they take you to the baths.”  
  
Dorian made an indistinct grumbling noise, but pushed himself upright and staggered out of his cell and over to the medical station, where she began her work.  
  
“You were one of Tanith’s regulars, right?” he asked, after a moment.  
  
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m surprised you remember me.”  
  
“I don’t remember any particulars. I just remember seeing you when I was in Nessum.”  
  
“I’m Laurel,” she reintroduced herself.  
  
“Dorian.”  
  
“Yes, I know,” she replied. “You were one of Alexius’ boys, weren’t you?”  
  
Dorian snorted. “I suppose I was, after a fashion. He was my mentor, though, not my father.”  
  
“I meant that you were an operative in his cell,” Laurel corrected him.  
  
“Ah,” Dorian said. “Then yes, I definitely was that.”  
  
They fell silent for a time. It was obvious to the Bull, from the way the both were sneaking looks towards where the guards were standing by the entrance, the day shift and the night shift swapping gossip with one another.  
  
“Livia’s fine, last I heard of her,” Laurel said, speaking more softly. “Both of the Livias, even. Felix and Feodor too, and I think that Dalish guy who joined your cell, Ma-something?”  
  
“Mahanon,” Dorian said, equally softly.  
  
“Yeah. He was being a real pain in the Magisterium’s backside, and as far as I know, he still is.”  
  
“Good. That’s good,” Dorian said.  
  
“I don’t know what happened to anyone else from your group,” she said.  
  
“I do,” Dorian said. She motioned for him to turn around and he did so, making it impossible for the Bull to see his face as he continued. “Dead, dead, Tranquil, dead, and two cells down from mine.”  
  
There was another silence.  
  
“Thank you,” Dorian told her. “I haven’t heard very much news since I was captured I’m afraid.”  
  
“I figured,” Laurel replied.  
  
“How are you holding up?” he asked.  
  
“Better than you are.” His bruises were gone, but the scratch on his arm remained. Dorian turned around, wincing as she began to clean it. “Better than a lot of people are, I expect. You should know that they got Tanith.”  
  
Dorian’s eyes went wide, and the Bull could tell that the blood had been flushed out of them by how much white was showing. “When you say ‘got’, do you mean she was killed, or that she was captured?”  
  
“Captured, around the same time I was. I don’t think they’ll judge an elven Soporata as important enough for immolation, but I haven’t heard anything yet.”  
  
“ _Vishante kaffas_ ,” Dorian moaned, pressing his free hand over his eyes.  
  
“I just thought you ought to know,” Laurel said.  
  
Dorian nodded sharply, and was silent as she finished her work and sent him back to his cell.

* * *

 

The bathhouse was nice: an old, old building with dwarven plumbing, fluffy towels, steam rooms, and bath salts that turned the water pink and smelled of strawberries. If it had just been the gladiators in the bathhouse, it would have been a fun time. If it had been the gladiators and their guards, then it still would have been a fun time- they all knew how to strike a balance between keeping track of the guards and going about their business by now.  
  
But the bath house was staffed with slaves, slaves with practiced, emptily coy motions they used to service them, broken up only by a few flashes of skittishness. And, worse still, there were the magisters, closely followed by apprentices, heirs, spouses and bodyguards, come to look their fill.  
  
More than look, in some cases. One woman, draped in gossamer-thin silk and studded with topaz, compelled Hillarion towards her with a crook of her fingers and a little applied force magic, and then groped the poor guy in front of everyone, while the gaggle of women accompanying her tittered. Another man grabbed Crispin, and made a spectacle out of pretending to mistake him for Dorian to his friends’ amusement. That lasted until Dorian himself intervened with a drawled barb and plenty of bravado to keep his spine straight and put a swagger in his step. It gave them pause enough to let Crispin go: they were still trying to work out the Archon’s angle, it seemed.  
Good. That would give Dorian a little bit of time to adjust to what was no longer an immediate death sentence. He’d need that time: some of the magisters present were watching the whole thing with open disgust, not partaking in any sort of merriment, simply watching Dorian and those he was interacting with, their eyes cold and calculating.  
  
They stood out among the other magisters, most of whom were having fun. They were almost rowdy, in their aloofly refined way, checking one another’s reactions as they made catty remarks about the gladiators. For some of them, it kind of looked like this was foreplay; others weren’t so subtle about it. People started fucking on the far side of the room, their silhouettes only half visible through the steam and the maze of unfolded privacy screens. The Bull could make out shapes and motions, but not much else. Even the couple closest to him, hidden only by a low wall, was difficult to read: they were a man and a woman, both human, but he couldn’t tell anything else about them. Were they husband and wife? Mentor and apprentice? Master and slave? Was either one of them even enjoying themselves, or was this just another performance?  
  
“Don’t worry,” Dorian told him. “I’m fairly certain they aren’t allowed to fuck us at the moment.”  
  
“Not unless anyone’s paid off the guards,” Iris muttered darkly. She’d been doing her best to keep one of them between her and the magisters at all times, and honestly, the Bull was glad he could help with that. He was glad he could do something.  
  
“When’s that allowed without the bribes?” he asked.  
  
“Just the after parties,” Dorian informed him.  
  
The whole experience left him feeling filthy, and he couldn’t shake it like he could when he had to let himself be touched. He tried to refocus his attention away from the magisters and onto the other gladiators, so he could size up the competition.  
  
It didn’t really work.

Oh, he was able to take stock of the gladiators in the room well enough. There were slightly more men than women. There were more elves than any other race, though humans were in a close second, and qunari a distant third. He could tell from the foods listed last night that most of the people in their antetheater were native to Tevinter or Seheron, with most of the others coming from Antiva, Rivain, and the Anderfels, and that seemed to hold true from what he could tell from conversation in the bath house: mostly trade, with a lot of Antivan, a smattering of Orlesian, a few recitation of matrilineal lineage from the Rivaini and the awkward meeting of dialects that seemed to happen whenever two Anders people met. There were more people with the look of mages than he would have expected, most of whom were branded Lucerni, the rest of whom were Dalish. There was one woman, a branded human, who carried herself with the same mixture of haughtiness and humiliation as Dorian- another Altus, or so the Bull thought. He wondered if Dorian knew her.  
  
That was about as far as he got in his threat assessment, because he kept getting distracted by the magisters. He kept wanting to pull Hillarion in with the other members of their ludus, kept trying to figure out whether it was more important that Iris be blocked from the sight of the human woman leading an elf around on a leash, or from the elven man with all the ruby jewelry who had clearly come to keep an eye on Dorian but kept looking at her anyway? Even without all those specific threats, he thought he might have gotten distracted by the fact that if it weren’t for the magisters, he might never have fought these people at all. They might have even been on the same side.  
  
He wondered what would happen if he tried to attack one of the magister now. A lot of the gladiators here were here because they’d fought magisters, after all. Maybe they would help. Probably, they would be too afraid of the repercussions to act.

Eventually Hillarion was let go and eventually they were herded away from the magisters and into a changing room. Fresh clothing had been provided for all of them: to Dorian’s obvious disgust, he was still stuck with a loincloth.  
  
“It’s not even a nice cloth,” Dorian stage-muttered, probably as much because Hillarion and Iris were rolling their eyes at his complaining as much as because he genuinely disliked it. “If it had some kind of color or pattern to it, maybe I could make something of it, but it’s just _brown_.”  
  
“Look on the bright side,” the Bull urged, mostly to see him splutter at the optimism. “You already look better than you did last night.”  
  
“Only because Laurel took care of the swelling and flushed the blood out of my eye,” Dorian retorted. “Do you think we’re allowed to shave?”  
  
As though in answer to his question, a new group of the bathhouse slaves entered the changing room, cosmetics in hand, and the guards herded them into queue.  
  
It took a while for them to get primped for the arena, even though it was mostly a matter of touching up the work that had been done on them by their luduses. The Bull hung back so he was near the end of the line, watching the process: the guards had some kind of record of what each gladiator was supposed to look like, and rattled it off to the bathhouse slaves, who did the actual work themselves.  
  
By the time it was the Bull’s turn, the room was kind of a wreck, and the woman who was working on him was regarding it with dismay.  
  
“Sorry about the mess,” he told her, startling her a bit.  
  
“It’s all right,” she replied. “I know you’re not responsible.”  
  
She made a weird twist when she cleaned off the mirror for him, creating in the fog something like the symbol he’d seen painted on buildings when he was travelling up north through Tevinter with Krem, if only for a moment. He’d already had that pegged as being some kind of symbol for the Lucerni, but it was nice to get confirmation.  
  
It was nice, too, to see Dorian smile at her before they were all shepherded into the tunnel that would lead them back to the amphitheater. He caught the Bull’s eye as they left, and grinned, but said nothing: the symbol was risky enough, for everybody, without putting it into words.

* * *

 

The Iron Bull was the opening act that day.  
  
Or, well. Judging from the music the opening act was some kind of circus performers, but the Bull had the first fight of the day. Marini was absent, along with the other ludus owners, so Decimus gave him the rundown.  
  
“This is potentially a death match,” he told him. “The gladiator you’re fighting against is called Baqoun. He’s qunari, like you: unlike you, he’s been doing this for a few years, so watch yourself. You’re new, and he’s got a following: if you lose, you’ll probably get the thumbs down from the crowd, and the Archon isn’t going to look kindly on you.”  
  
“What kind of fighter is he?” the Bull asked. He’d find out in a few minutes, but as long as he was stuck on his knees waiting for his horns to get screwed back in anyway, he might as well prepare.  
  
“Scutarius,” Decimus told him, so: a large tower shield, minimal armor, short curved sword. Get the shield away from him, and he would likely have trouble defending himself, especially against the large axe the Bull was wielding.  
  
The fight took about fifteen minutes, which was longer than the Bull expected it to take. Baquon’s equipment was a lot better than his: the top of his shield had a blade’s edge to it, his actual blade was forged from silverite, as were his improbably coil false horns, which were also enchanted to be on fire.  
  
“Whoever does your horns, please, please ask your owner to tell my owner about them,” the Bull said. “They’re awesome.”  
  
Baqoun grunted in a way the reminded him of Grim in reply. Then he tried to slice a chunk out of the Bull’s arm.  
  
He’d had to be careful: getting the shield away from the guy was harder when he could slice the Bull open with it. He was also better at defending himself with only his short sword than he thought he would be, and the Bull had to be careful not to nick the blade of his axe against it. Still, the fight ended with Baqoun tapping out against the sand, the Bull standing over him.  
  
There hadn’t been any kind of voting in the pageant match he’d fought- not that he’d seen anyway. Still, the lanista had explained this part to him when he’d first arrived: votes would be tallied by section, and the Editore had final say, unless the Archon had hung around.  
  
So, the Bull waited as the votes were tallied, and one by one each section had a demon in the form of a hand summoned to signify the vote.  
  
After enough hands in a row were called out, the announcer summarized.  
  
“The Annonani have spoken: _Missio_!”  
  
“The Soporati have spoken: _Missio_!”  
  
“The Coalition of Merchants have spoken: _Missio_!”  
  
“The Merchant’s Guild have spoken: _Missio_!”  
  
“The Laetans have spoken: _Missio_!”  
  
“The Chantry have spoken: _Missio_!”  
  
“The Imperial Army have spoken: _Missio_!”  
  
“The Circle of Minrathous have spoken: _Missio_!”  
  
“The Altus Houses have spoken: _Missio_!”  
  
So, thumbs up all the way. The Bull was okay with that.  
  
“Hey,” he said, helping Baqoun to his feet. “Good fight.”  
  
Baqoun grunted, sort of. He made a noise in his throat with his mouth opened wide enough to see where his tongue wasn’t.  
  
_“I know that it’s a practice, for some owners to cut out the tongue along with the horns.”_  
  
He really should have guessed that before it was in his face. At least he remembered to school his features, so the demon wearing his face wasn’t projecting his anger for all to see.  
  
Instead, he forced a smile and bowed to Baqoun. Then, because it had worked well for him last time, blew the crowd a kiss.  
  
The crowd loved that, cheering loudly at the gesture. The Bull wondered if the guy who cut out Baqoun’s tongue was among them.

* * *

 

The Bull went through the post-game routine, shucking off his armor, returning his weapon and horns, letting Laurel heal his scrapes and bruises and then sitting down with his lunch.  
  
He’d only eaten an hour ago, so he set the stew and the bread aside and watched the others go about their business.  
  
Mara went out next, and then Yenko with some of the other archers; Iris was matched with another skinny elven girl from the cell three rows over from hers, won, and came back trailing blood but otherwise alone; for while, no one from their ludus went, and then the woman he wasn’t friendly with went out. She was still fighting when a runner came up to Decimus with a missive. He read it with a huff of disgust, and then disappeared behind the weapons’ rack, rummaging around the trunks where they’d stored their armor.  
  
“Ser?” the messenger asked breathlessly. She was a scrawny little kid, with rags wrapped around her feet instead of shoes. If she was older than ten, the Bull would eat his horns.  
  
Well. He’d eat his eyepatch.  
  
“Ser, you’ve forgotten the tip,” she continued.  
  
Decimus poked his head around the rack, and scowled at her. For a minute the Bull was sure he was going to hit her, and then he shook his head.  
  
“Take care of that, would you?” he barked at his subordinates. The young woman with the limp opened up a tin and handed the girl a silver piece from it. The girl took it with wide eyes and scampered away.  
  
“What?” the young woman said in response to the stares her fellow guards gave her. “We didn’t use any of yesterday’s per diem, and she looked like she could use a good meal.”  
  
Decimus came out with a set of the sort of leather armor Dalish favored, and unlocked Dorian’s cell.  
  
“You’ve got a fight,” he told him, tossing him the armor.  
  
Dorian caught it easily, though he looked startled.  
  
“And armor?” he asked, even as began putting it on.  
  
“That’s the word,” Decimus said with a shrug.  
  
“Did I get a sponsor?” Dorian asked.  
  
“Fuck if I know,” Decimus said.  
  
Dorian finished dressing and waited by the weapon rack, trying not to appear nervous and not quite managing it.  
  
Marini entered the antetheater around the time the crowd started cheering in the amphitheater.  
  
“There was a poisoning,” she said without preamble. “One of the other gladiators is dead. I’ve arranged for you to take her place.”  
  
Dorian opened his mouth, visibly rethought whatever it was he was going to say, and then asked. “And the armor?”  
  
“Last night was profitable,” Marini said. “I received an anonymous donation of five thousand gold, on the condition that you would be given some proper armor and this.”  
  
She pulled a staff out from the end of the rack. It was a very good looking staff, made of volcanic aurum with a silverite focus in the shape of a skull and a dawnstone staffblade.  
  
“That’s my staff!” Dorian cried shocked.  
  
“No,” Marini corrected impatiently, shoving the staff at him. “It’s mine, which I am allowing you to use because it got me a thousand times what I paid for you.”  
  
“But-” Dorian started, and then stopped himself. He took the staff.  
  
Marini fished out his control rod, and turned it down. “It’s a death match you’ll be fighting, so don’t bother looking for the crowd’s signal. Your opponent is called Valendros, a retiarius. He’s had a successful season earlier this year, with twenty-three kills and only two losses, so don’t mess around.”  
  
“Right,” Dorian said, looking down at his staff like it might grow wings and start trying to fly away.  
  
“Well don’t just stand there,” Marini snarled.  
  
Dorian looked at her, and realized that he was about two seconds away from being hit again. “As you say,” he muttered, and started off down the ramp.

* * *

 

Judging by the musical cues and the crowd’s jeering, Dorian’s second match lasted about three minutes. Marini stayed in the antetheater scowling fiercely behind her opera glasses as she watched, not even looking down as she turned his collar up once more.  
  
Dorian swaggered up the ramp, not a scratch on him. He faltered when he saw the expression on her face, but continued gamely forward.  
  
As soon as he dropped the staff back onto the weapon’s rack, Marini snatched it up for herself and swung it into Dorian’s back.  
  
Dorian yelped, more surprise than pain, and turned to face her. “What-” he said, obviously trying to cast.  
  
It was an instinct that cost him his footing. Marini swung for his legs next, and despite his quickness managed to catch them with enough force to send Dorian sprawling back on the floor. She stepped onto his sternum and rested the staffblade against his throat.  
  
“Do you understand what your purpose is?” she hissed.  
  
The words were in Trade, and spoken by, if not a Magister then a slave-owning ‘Vint mage, and they weren’t spoken to him. It was strange, how badly the Bull wanted to reply _My purpose is the serve the Qun_ anyway.  
  
“I-what are you- I don’t-” Dorian sputtered. He tried to push himself back upright, and then went limp when all that did was open up a shallow cut on his throat.  
  
Marini shifted a little more of her weight onto his sternum, and he grunted. “You are here to provide people with entertainment. How entertaining is it to watch someone burn their opponent to ash and then leave before the five minute mark?”  
  
“I- you told me not mess around!” Dorian protested.  
  
“That doesn’t mean you should forget your duty,” Marini snarled. “When you enter that arena, you will put on a show. When you visit with your fans- once you have them- you will put on a show. When potential sponsors come to meet you on my ludus, you will put on a show, and you will make it a good one. Is that clear?”  
  
Dorian stared at her, looking confused.  
  
Marini shifted her footing so that she was placing most of her weight on her heel, on dug it into his sternum. “Is. That. Clear?”  
  
“Yes,” Dorian answered shortly. “It’s clear.”  
  
“Good,” Marini said, and let him stand. Dorian did so, shakily, pressing his fingers to the scratch on his throat and grimacing when they came away streaked with blood.  
  
“Get yourself checked over, and clean up,” Marini ordered him. “Then back into your cell. No lunch for you today, I think.”  
  
For a moment there, Dorian looked as though he were going to try to fight her on that in spite of everything that just happened. Then he reigned himself in, and nodded stiffly at her. “Right. I…understand.” The words seemed to physically pain him.  
  
He slunk back into his cell not ten minutes later. Fights were still ongoing in the amphitheater, but none of them seemed to involve anyone from their antetheater, so they just sat there, listening to the music and the crowd’s reactions. Marini left once again, and there was, for a few minutes, a downpour they could hear from inside their cells.  
  
“First rain of the season,” Mara remarked.  
  
“We’re having a drought again this year,” said the gladiator next to the Fog Warrior.  
  
“We’re having one in the north,” Mara corrected. “The south’s flooded. The canals in Nessum are practically their own tributaries- or they were, a couple of months ago.”  
  
“It’s actually the rainy season now,” Dorian said. “They’re probably worse.”  
  
They were silent again for a moment. The rain passed.

“I’m sorry, I just- did you really sell for five gold?” Crispin asked.  
  
“As far as I can recall,” Dorian replied, looking at him askance through the bars of the Bull’s cell. “Why?”  
  
“Because that means I’m worth two of you,” Crispin told him, not without glee.  
  
Dorian stared at him. “Well, don’t get too excited, you probably had a higher life expectancy than me, rather than it being a matter of talent,” he retorted.  
  
“Yeah, but I mean, think of this way: ten gold is a decent quality staff, if- and only if- you’re shopping secondhand during a beginning of term sale and have a Circle discount. Five gold might get you a dinky staffblade from the Army surplus supply depot.”  
  
“There’s a surplus of army supplies?” Hillarion asked, sounding bewildered. “Enough for a depot?”  
  
Crispin shrugged. “That’s what the sign said.”  
  
“Well, I’ve got you both beat,” the Bull said. “I was twelve gold.”  
  
“No, no,” Dorian said hurriedly. “We are absolutely not comparing our prices, that is ridiculous. I refuse.”  
  
“You’re only saying that because you’re the cheapest,” Crispin teased.  
  
“No, he had me beat by two gold,” Yenko interjected.  
  
“We’re not doing this,” Dorian repeated. “We were all criminally underpriced anyway.” He snorted bitterly. “If nothing else, I guess we can console ourselves with the fact that the Lucerni rebellion probably crashed the slave market for the next twenty years.”  
  
Silence fell among the members of their ludus for a couple more minutes, then Crispin struck up conversation with Hillarion. Dorian turned his attention back to the weapon’s rack.  
  
The Bull watched him for a few moments, before asking “So how much was that staff worth?”  
  
“I’m not sure. At a guess, thirty-five gold?” Dorian said with a shrug. “It was a gift, from when I became a full Enchanter at the Circle of Minrathous. Asking for a price would have seemed gauche, even if I’d thought to do so.”  
  
He was silent for a time, but there was obviously something he wanted to say, so the Bull waited him out.  
  
“I haven’t seen it in years,” he admitted finally. “Shortly before I joined the Lucerni there was a- a conflict, between myself and my father and several of his hired goons. The staff got left behind, I considered it lost.”  
  
“Any idea who it’s from?” the Bull asked.  
  
“No. I can’t think of anyone who had access to it and might want to help me, even anonymously,” Dorian told him. “And if this is from one of my enemies, then I have no idea what they want, and no way of finding out.”  
  
Dorian closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.  
  
The Bull thought about asking him if he was alright, but the answer was obvious, and he couldn’t see that Dorian would appreciate the question. So he stayed silent and listened to Crispin and Hillarion debate the merits of veal souvlaki over pork.

* * *

 

Hillarion and Crispin were part of the closing act, some kind of fight where pairs of people from the same ludus all faced off one another. They were halfway through being briefed by Decimus when Marini returned, and had his cell and Yenko’s unlocked.  
  
“Neither one of you have fights for the next couple of days,” she explained. “I’m setting you back to the ludus to rest, and leaving now means you might miss the post-game rush.”  
  
He and Yenko nodded and followed her out of the antetheater. The bazaar the others had spoken of was already populated by people who’d left early, or hadn’t been able to get seats, or who just wanted to shop without seeing any bloodshed. There was a lot of food, and without a breeze to dispel it, the air itself seemed like it had been rubbed with spices, marinated in vinegar, and then fried in oil.  
  
The Bull breathed deeply. The food provided to the gladiators was filling, but it was bland by Tevinter standards, and even the strictest of ration rotas under the Qunari had had more variety. Maybe he was just going soft, but he missed food with taste.  
  
Marini lead them over to the bazaar’s edge, and they waited from the carriage to take them home. He didn’t see any chocolates, so they weren’t passing Subira’s stall, which meant he had no chance to even nod in the viddathari’s direction. That forced him to think of over opportunities he might be missing.  
  
“Ma’am?” he asked.  
  
Marini’s bodyguards tensed, one hand on the hilt of their blades. Marini herself didn’t bother turning around to face him.  
  
“Yes?” she replied.  
  
“I’m sorry for not telling you I was from Seheron earlier,” he apologized, gauging her reaction. If she was angry with him for it, she’d probably keep from punishing him until after the games were over, but it would be nice to know if that was coming. “I didn’t realize it might cause problems until that was pointed out to me.”  
  
Marini turned to face him at that, her eyes flicking up and down him before she smiled. “Think nothing of it, Iron Bull,” she told him. “I’m your owner, you can’t keep anything from me even if you tried.”  
  
The Bull’s stomach plummeted.  
  
It wasn’t fair to the vidathiss who had looked out for him in reeducation, but he thought of one of them now.  
  
There had been a mango tree outside one of the rooms he’d been kept in. Twice, a fruit from the tree fell down through the bars in the window of his room and had landed on the floor. They’d been bruised and overripe, but not rotten or infested.  
  
He’d eaten the first one. It had been two days since he’d been allowed food, and he was hungry. Once the mango had sat heavily in his stomach he’d regretted it: there was a reason he wasn’t eating. It made it easier for the vidathiss to do their work, and shape him back up.  
  
He’d confessed to the vidathiss who was working with him at the time before she’d even had the chance to fully enter his room. He’d been expecting to be punished for the transgression. Instead, the vidathiss had looked him over and said “One cannot blame dathrasi for obeying their nature and feasting upon trash.”  
  
When another fruit fell into his room the next day, he left it alone, rolling over on his bed so he didn’t have to look at it and be tempted to behave like an animal. The vidathiss had it removed when she entered without comment, sent a meal to him before the call for sleep, and the next day he was reassigned to a different part of the viddathlok, to work with a different vidathiss.  
  
The expectation of being punished remained, even now, an axe over his head that had yet to fall. Mangos had never tasted the same since.  
  
The Bull pushed the memory aside. Unlike the vidathiss, Marini didn’t have his best interests at heart, and despite her words, she had no way of knowing that he still followed the Qun. She knew nothing.  
  
If she’d known, he wouldn’t be breathing right now.  
  
Marini was still looking at him expectantly.  
  
“Yes ma’am,” the Bull replied. “Thank you, ma’am.”  
  
He was silent as the carriage pulled up, and all the way back to the ludus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art is by the lovely [fanjapanologist](http://fanjapanologist.tumblr.com/), who is tremendous, and always listens when I whine about how this fic fights me sometimes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This part of the story was originally posted on the kinkmeme during the period of May 24th-June10th 2016.
> 
> Fair warning: while there's nothing especially graphic about it, this chapter does have a scene which is the immediate aftermath of rape. It's in the segment which begins "The crowd parted".

It was dark out when they finally arrived back at the ludus, and late enough that the courtyard had been emptied. He’d been tired, and trying not to worry too much about Dorian, and the lighting had been poor, which was why he didn’t realize that the ludus was undergoing renovations until the sound of workmen swearing as stone fell to ground woke him up before dawn.  
  
“What the fuck?” he yelped, springing upright as a shower of gravel and stone dust fell through the little window above his bed and pelted him.  
  
“Go the fuck back to sleep,” Tavarius moaned.  
  
He’d gone back down to the cells through the guard tower directly next to the actual house Marini lived in, and bypassed the courtyard entirely. Walking up to it in the light of day was an experience.  
  
“Was that always there?” he asked staring. There had been a wall along the back of the covered porch that ran alongside the eastern part of the courtyard they practiced in. It was gone now, and the Bull could see clear out to the far outer wall of Marini’s property. From one end to another, it must have been half a furlong across, easily.  
  
“If you mean the space? Yeah, it was,” Tavarius told him. “If you mean everything in the space…” He trailed off with a shrug.  
  
“Some of it must have been,” Yenko said. “Even the harshest taskmaster or most talented mage can’t accomplish all this in only two days.”  
  
There was still a clearly demarcated line between the courtyard they were used to, and the giant one now revealed by the workmen, and they weren’t allowed to pass it, but it was obvious that the newer courtyard was going to be for the gladiators to train in. There was a brick racetrack being laid in the center, and the weapons' racks and such had already been removed from their little one, and now rested safely below a canopy on the far side of it. There was some kind of housing built against the far wall on the courtyard: judging by the level of activity, that was where the guards lived.  
  
“So what are they working on over by the cells?” the Bull asked.  
  
The cells the gladiators were kept in were on the other side of the high wall to the south of the courtyard. The Bull couldn’t see what they were working on, but he could hear them working on it.  
  
“Search me,” Tavarius replied.  
  
The lanista had them run laps around the smaller courtyard, which was still relatively free of debris, and halfheartedly put them through their paces with practice weapons. Then she released them to their own devices.  
  
The Bull and Yenko were pressed for all the details about the games: which antetheater were they in? What other luduses did they share it with? Had anyone died yet?  
  
The Bull let the others run off at the mouth with their speculation about why Dorian might have been spared. It was interesting, but none of them seemed to have any better idea what was going on than those of them still in the antetheater had, which just left them at ‘Marini is using him for something risky’.  
  
When discussion petered out, they all ended up in the baths. What else was there for them to do?

The Bull emerged from the bath and headed towards the massage parlor on instinct.  
  
“It will take some time for us to heat the stones to the proper temperature, The Iron Bull,” Rilienus told him.  
  
“That’s alright,” the Bull told him. “Today wasn’t exactly grueling. I can skip.”  
  
“You will need to be in top form when you return to the arena, The Iron Bull,” Rilienus argued, with as much reproach as a Tranquil could muster. “You should allow me to tend to you.”  
  
The Bull felt bad about saying no to the guy, when he wasn’t really capable of having opinions and Dorian had asked him to look out for him. So he settled against the wall to wait.  
  
“So, Rilienus,” he began, after a few moments’ silence. “Are they treating you okay?”  
  
Rilienus shrugged. “I am provided with adequate resources to see to my needs, and am not harried by the guards or any other members of the staff. Why do you ask?”  
  
“Dorian asked me to check in on you from time to time,” the Bull told him.  
  
“I see,” Rilienus replied. He plunked the stones into the kettle full of water, one by one, and set it over the fire to boil. Then he turned around to face the Bull. “Do you know if he was in much pain when he died?”  
  
“He didn’t die,” the Bull said, startled. “He’s still alive- or he was when I left the arena yesterday. Did no one tell you?”  
  
“I was not told,” Rilienus replied. “I do not believe knowledge of my prior association with Dorian is widespread here, and even if it were, that would not be cause to keep me informed of his health.”  
  
“Yeah, in hindsight I definitely should have lead with that,” the Bull agreed. “I’ll make sure you get the news from now on.”  
  
“How did he survive?” Rilienus asked.  
  
“He beat the quillbacks sent to kill him, and then the Archon spared him,” the Bull told him. “No one’s sure why yet.”  
  
“Still,” Rilienus said. “That is unexpectedly good news. Thank you for telling me.”  
  
“No problem,” the Bull replied.

* * *

 

The next day wasn’t too different from the one before it. The Bull woke up when a load of gravel was dumped in through his window again- though this time, at least, he’d known to pull the bed away from the window some.  
  
“ _Fasta vass_ , not again!” cried out one of the workmen.  
  
“It’s even the same window! _Vishante kaffas_ , Marcus!”  
  
When it was time for him to actually get up, he found that the little courtyard now had a large ginkgo tree growing in it.  
  
“Can gingko trees even grow this far north?” he asked.  
  
“The planter will be enchanted for it,” Yenko said.  
  
Sure enough, when the lanista called an end to their drills and lunch was served, the Bull went over to the tree. The air around it was cool and dry, and touching the planter itself raised the air on his arm.  
  
On the one hand, that was kind of creepy. On the other hand, he could already see uses for it: sitting along here would cool them off when the weather got muggier, and sitting behind it could afford them a little bit of privacy.  
  
“Form up,” the lanista barked, jarring him out of his thoughts. “You’re needed to help move materials.”  
  
That was how the Bull found out that there was a back entrance.  
  
He’d know about the two of the entrances out of the house, and the one through the guard tower just to the west of it. But neither one of those entrances was good for escaping out through. The back entrance wasn’t very good either for that either, but it was certainly better.  
  
The back entrance to Marini’s estate was a portcullis set into the thick outer wall. It was connected by a wide promenade to a second portcullis that lead into the larger training courtyard. Most of the space between the walls seemed to be utilitarian gardens of fruit and vegetables, like you would find under the Qun. The Bull could see steam rising from what must be the bathhouse at the far end of the gardens, and then a long, relatively low wall which seemed to be in the process of being white washed. Above it, he could see the poorly-thatched roofs of hovels: that must be where those of the estate’s slaves not high ranking enough to warrant quarters inside the house lived.  
  
There were some guard towers visible, but not nearly as many as there were in the courtyard, and the Bull could see some blind spots. It was obvious that they expected that if trouble should come, it should come from the gladiators, and that they were most likely to cause trouble where they trained. That was useful. If he could sneak out into this part of the estate, and maybe Rocky could cause a distraction…  
  
He needed to get back into communication with his boys first, before he could do anything like planning. Still, the intel was good to have.  
  
The Bull spent the afternoon and into the evening shifting pallets of gravel and mulch and stone between the portcullises. The lanista kept them in order, and called for a decent amount of breaks for water and rest: more than the workmen were getting. They glowered at them jealously every time they saw the gladiators sitting down.  
  
The Bull paid them little mind. They’d be gone once their work was finished: the slaves working in the garden would stay.

The slaves were mostly elves, of course, with some humans mixed in. It seemed to be mostly children in their early adolescence working in garden, along with a few elders, and some mothers with babies strapped to their backs.  
  
Whenever they sat, some kids not quite finished with their first decade would come up to them with pitchers of water.  
  
“Are you really a Qunari?” asked one little boy, a human with a gap-toothed smile who looked like he was maybe five.  
  
“Yeah, I am,” the Bull replied.  
  
“But you don’t have any horns!” the boy protested.  
  
“Well,” the Bull said, trying to figure out how to explain this to a child. In the end, it was probably better to just be blunt, but scarce with the details. “They got cut off, just after I arrived here, so they wouldn’t get caught on the door.”  
  
“Oh,” the boy said, his eyes growing wide. “Did that hurt?”  
  
“No,” the Bull assured him. “They don’t- they didn’t have any sensation in them. Like hair or finger nails.”  
  
The boy thought about that for a moment. “Gloria- that’s my big sister- you see her?” he jabbed his finger in the direction of an elven girl about a year old than he was.  
  
Now that he was taking a closer look at them, he could see that there seemed to be a lot more human-looking children than elven parents. Given how few of the slaves here were human, and how many of the guards _were_ human…  
  
He should probably just roll that train of thought up now. It wouldn’t do any good if he got angry.  
  
“Yeah, kid I see her,” the Bull replied.  
  
“The overseer ripped out her toenails once,” the boy explained anxiously. “There was blood everywhere, and she couldn’t run right for a month.”  
  
It wouldn’t do anyone any good if he got angry now- not for this kid and certainly not his sister.  
  
“You ever chip the end of one of your fingernails off?” the Bull asked.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Did it hurt?”  
  
“Not exactly.”  
  
“It was like that.” He bent his head down, so the kid could see his stubs up close. “They left the parts where there’s skin and blood, you see?”  
  
The kid reached up, and felt around the base of his stubs.  
  
“Oh. Were they very big horns?”  
  
“Huge,” the Bull told him, sticking up his hands to illustrate.  
  
“Denis!”  
  
That was probably his mother. The Bull looked up to see a mousy-looking elven woman, looking worn and tired. Living here had probably aged her: knowing that, the Bull would put her in her late twenties.  
  
“Denis, give the nice large man his water and move along,” she said, in a Fereldan accent. She was probably one of the elves stolen out of Gwaren or Denerim during the Blight, and now she had to raise her kids to be someone else’s property.  
  
What a shitty hand to be dealt.  
  
“Yes mama,” the boy- Denis- said sulkily, and picked up the pitcher of water.  
  
The Bull drank, set aside how deeply he hated this country, and then got back to work.

* * *

The Bull was woken up again before dawn, this time by the guard with the limp from the antetheater, instead of gravel.  
  
“You’ve got a fight this afternoon,” she told him. “I’ve got breakfast for you, we’re leaving as soon as you’re bathed and dressed. Hopefully that will give us enough time to beat the traffic.”  
  
They did not beat the traffic. They got mired in it, slowing to a crawl as they approached the citadel gates in the wall that guarded the city’s center, and then stopping entirely as they came within sight of the amphitheater. Most of the traffic was on foot, a veritable river of people pressing in on one another. There were a few other vehicles in the roads, mostly abandoned in the street and guarded by dour-faced slaves who watched the throng surrounding them with distaste, one hand on their weapons.  
  
In front of them, the Capitoline glittered in the sunlight. To their east, a Juggernaut stood watch. Above them all, the sun was crawling ahead much faster than they could ever hope to.  
  
“ _Fasta vass_ , this is hopeless,” the guard groused after they managed to lurch about two feet forward over the course of an hour. She fished around in the storage box that had been rattling around under the Bull’s seat all the way into town, and came up with a quill, ink, and paper. A few quick scribbles later and she had a message: she hopped out, and was immediately surrounded by a bevy of Minrathous’ street children, all of them offering their services.  
  
“Water for your horse?”  
  
“Water for your ox?”  
  
“I can get you some refreshments so you don’t have to leave your wagon, if you like.”  
  
“What I need is a messenger,” the guard said.  
  
Apparently, they were all messengers too.  
  
The guard scanned their face, grabbed a would-be pickpocket by the wrist and sent him scuttling away, and then picked the girl who’d brought Decimus the message about Dorian’s fight earlier that week. The guard sent her off with the message, a silver, and the promise of another such coin should she return with Decimus’ reply within the hour.  
  
Given the way the other guards had reacted before, one silver was already paying too much. Two silvers was probably a lot to pay that girl.  
  
“What?” the woman said as she returned to the carriage.  
  
“I haven’t seen a lot of people act kindly since I got caught,” the Bull told her. “It’s good to see.”  
  
It was good to know that she was a soft touch, too: she was the first guard he’d met that he could say that about. That could come in handy later- might have been in more handy, if she had been at all attracted to him. Then maybe he could have seduced her, could have established some kind of routine that got him out into the garden area on the regular. But he’d become _really_ sensitive to when people looked at him like they wanted a ride, and she hadn’t ever done that. She’d looked at Mara with some heat but no intent- not that he blamed her, Mara was like a svelte hunting cat given a human form with great tits- but she didn’t look at him. Or Dorian. Or Hillarion, which given how hard the Vints went after him kind of cemented his theory that she just wasn’t into men at all.  
  
“I’m the Iron Bull, by the way,” he said. “We were never introduced.”  
  
She laughed at him, to let him know that she’d caught his attempt at fishing for her name. That was fine: the version of the Iron Bull he’d been performing wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t very good at guile or manipulation either.  
  
Even better, she answered him. “I’m Arsinoe. Arsinoe Yovenni.”  
  
“Pleased to meet you, Arsinoe,” the Bull said. His hands were manacled, but there was enough slack for him to offer her one to shake without things being too awkward.  
  
The girl brought Decimus back to them just outside the time limit. As Decimus ran the enchanted rod over his manacles, Arsinoe leaned down to pay the girl her second silver anyway.  
  
“I’m called Shirin,” the girl introduced herself. “If you ever need anything, just give a shout. Can’t promise you I’ll hear about it in a timely manner, but I’ll hear about it, that I do promise.”  
  
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Arsinoe said.

* * *

 

The crowd parted-- not easily, but willingly- at Decimus’ command, and he followed the man back to the antetheater. It was a walk of maybe a half of a mile, and took probably about twenty minutes for them to reach the antetheater. The Bull could hear the faint echoes of groaning the moment he stepped inside the antetheater, and it stopped him short.  
  
“What’s your problem?” Decimus snapped.  
  
“You can’t hear that?” the Bull asked.  
  
The groaning ended in a more audible moan. Decimus hissed an invective under his breath and pushed him forward. “Come on, I can’t do anything from here.”  
  
It was already over when they arrived at the holding area. The magister standing in Dorian’s cell had fastened his robes shut and was in the process of smoothing them out somewhat. His bodyguard was sheathing his sword, though he paused as he heard them enter and turned to face them with a faint shadow of disgust still evident on his face. On the floor behind them, Dorian was curled in on himself, alternately retching and gasping for breath.  
  
“What’s going on here?” Decimus demanded.  
  
_You can’t tell?_ the Bull wanted to ask. It seemed obvious to him.  
  
The magister turned to face them, an eyebrow arched as he regarded them coolly. “And who are you, to ask such as question of me?”

Dorian was still on the ground, his hands balled into fists, blood dripping from his nose. The Bull tore his eye away, forcing himself to take stock of the situation. Crispin’s cell was empty- he was probably out fighting, then. Yenko was still back at the ludus. The woman whose name he still didn’t know was also at the ludus, had been brought back there yesterday. Hillarion was sitting on his cot, his posture ramrod straight and his eyes locked straight ahead into the empty cell across from his. Mara was laying down on her cot, facing the wall, and all the way at the end, Iris had wedged herself into the far corner of her cell and huddled in ball with her face buried in her knees and her hands over her ears.  
  
To his credit, the guard didn’t flinch. “I’m Decimus Dedurian. I’m in charge of the guards for the ludus that man belongs to.”  
  
Arsinoe was still with the wagon. The woman with the flail scars was nowhere to be seen. The stout hairy man was still a little flushed- he’d obviously been enjoying the show until they’d arrived, and was now looking guiltily away. He had the impression that the elven guard, along with the guards from the amphitheater and the other luduses had been looking away, but they were watching now. Laurel was at her station, rolling bandages, her back to Dorian’s cell.  
  
“Ah,” the magister said. “I suppose you’ll want a bigger bribe, then?”  
  
He produced a gold coin from the pouch hanging off of his belt buckle. Decimus frowned at it. Dorian had fallen silent, though he was still on the floor. He glared, his upper lip curling back in an expression that was half sneer and half snarl.  
  
“I want you to leave, Magister, before I report you for interfering in the games,” Decimus replied.  
  
The magister sniffed haughtily. “Your dedication to your duty is to be admired, I’m sure.” He managed to make it sound like an insult. The Bull might have been impressed under other circumstances.  
  
The magister spared Dorian a sneer. “This wasn’t nearly as good a time as rumor would have it any way.”  
  
“You might derive more pleasure from fellatio if you would see someone about those cysts,” Dorian rasped.  
  
The magister didn’t bother with the staff leaning against the bars of Dorian’s cell, he merely raised an arm and sent Dorian flying back against the wall. He landed awkwardly, his legs catching on his cot before joining the rest of body in a crumpled heap on the floor. Dorian didn’t bother screaming, just let out a little grunt as he hit the floor. The Bull grit his teeth and winced in sympathy.  
  
“And now,” Decimus said, drawing his sword. The other guards followed suit. “I’m going to insist that you leave.”  
  
For a tense moment, the Bull was sure that the magister was going to try to kill them all. He was certainly thinking about it. He half hoped he would try it- it would give the Bull a good excuse to attack him. But bodies would be a lot more difficult for the magister to hide from the Capitoline’s authorities than a blowjob.  
  
“Oh do calm down,” the magister sneered with a note of finality, then grabbed his staff, and strode out of Dorian’s cell and then through the antetheater door.  
  
Two seconds later, the woman with the flail scars entered, holding a box full of what smelled like roasted coffee.  
  
“I thought we weren’t supposed to let visitors into the antetheater during the games?” she asked.  
  
“You’re absolutely right about that Phyllis,” Decimus told her, and then gestured at the Bull. “Get him into his cell.”  
  
She put down her box and ushered him into his cell. Next to him, Dorian managed to turn himself upright, crouching with his back to the wall of his cell, his arm wrapped around his knees.

* * *

 

Decimus chewed out his guards. The rant was its own kind of sickening: it wasn’t that Decimus had thought anyone had done anything wrong, exactly. He just didn’t like how they’d done it without Marini’s permission.  
  
Dorian stay with his head tilted back against the concrete wall, pinching his nose shut in order to stem the bleeding. The Bull sat on his cot, and watched, and tried to think of something to say. The words wouldn’t come. How often had this happened now: how often had he walked in to find some Vint with his pants down and his metaphorical and literal sword out, and someone else crying on floor behind them? It used to happen all the time, on Seheron. It used to happen every time they retook a city, every time his people managed to overrun a stronghold of theirs. He’d been able to say things then: _I’m Hissrad. I’m with the Qun. He’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore. No one will hurt you like that again, not under the Qun, I promise. It’ll be okay._ He’d find something for them to put on, and sometimes he had been able to let them cry themselves dry on his shoulder. It didn’t change what had happened, or whatever damage they might carry from it, but he liked to think it helped to stick it in the past where it belonged.  
  
Dorian wasn’t much of a crier. Even if he was, the Bull couldn’t do anything for him. He couldn’t get him some new clothes, couldn’t hold him, and he certainly couldn’t promise him that it wouldn’t happen again. It was going to happen again, if not in this cell during this particular string of games, then in some other place, at some other time, with some other magister, just as it had happened to every one of them before. And then it would happen again, and again, and again, and there wasn’t a damn thing the Bull could do to protect him from it.  
  
Decimus wound up his rant, and grabbed the keys. He unlocked Dorian’s cell. “Come on, out you get.”  
  
Dorian straightened his head a little so that he could look at Decimus. “Why?”  
  
“Because if you turn up with injuries you shouldn’t have, then you might cost me my job, so come out here.”  
  
Dorian glared, but said nothing, and did not move. After a moment, Decimus sighed, and went to drag Dorian out by his hair.

He more or less threw Dorian at the medical station. Dorian let out an angry huff, and braced himself against the slab that served as an operating table, his palms flat and fingers spread. It was a perfect target for Decimus, who brought his truncheon down on his right hand with an audible crack of breaking bone. Dorian bellowed, and tried to rear back, maybe even wind up for a punch, but he was stymied by the way Decimus was keeping his hand pinned to the table.  
  
“You don’t seem to understand your situation here,” Decimus snarled. He shifted his grip on the truncheon so that he had one hand on the butt and the other on the tip, like it was a rolling pin, and twisted it against Dorian’s hand. Dorian screamed, his free hand clutching the edge of the table in an effort to keep himself upright as his knees buckled.  
  
“Do you have any idea how lucky you are? How many people compete to reach the position you landed in?” Decimus removed the truncheon from Dorian’s hand and smashed it across his face. Dorian fell on the floor with a yelp, sprawled on his back with his injured hand cradled to his chest.  
  
“Do you know how many of your ilk are being burned?” Decimus lashed out again, and Dorian curled up on himself, trying to protect his head and injured hand from further blows. “How many people want you dead and humiliated?” He hit him again. The Bull was half-standing before his mind could catch up with his instincts. “How they would cheer to see you torn apart?” And again: the Bull forced himself to sit down. “Do you understand that we protect you from that?” Again: the Bull forced his fingers to curl around the edge of his cot, and hold him there. “We protect you, and you reward us with insubordination at every turn!” Again. Again. Again. Again.  
  
“Stop!” Dorian gasped. Again. “Stop, _please_!” Again. “Please, please stop!” Again. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, please just _stop_!”  
  
Decimus finally stopped- apparently he’d been looking for an apology. That was potentially useful information, and the Bull filed that away just in case he might need it later.  
  
After a moment, Dorian uncurled enough to look up at him, and received a swift kick in the side for his trouble.  
  
“Get up,” Decimus ordered.  
  
For a moment, the Bull was sure that Dorian either couldn’t or wouldn’t obey. Then he hauled himself upright with a groan of pain and took a shuffling step back away from Decimus, his expression wary.  
  
“You’re going to let the healer tend to you, and you’re going to clean yourself off before you return to your cell. And the next time one of us asks something of you, you’re going to give it to us without complaint, or I will do worse. And with a healer this close at hand, I can do a _lot_ worse.”  
  
Dorian nodded. “Yes. I understand.”  
  
“Good,” Decimus said, and turned away from him at last.

Laurel was by his side within a moment, guiding him over to the operating table and helping him settle on it. She gathered the required tools with efficiency.  
  
“Drink this,” she ordered, handing Dorian a freshly uncorked vial. Dorian tossed it back.  
  
She crushed together some herbs with a mortar and pedestal, and then went to retrieve a bucket of water from the cistern. She brought it up to a boil with a wave of her hand and carefully scooped a cup out. The paste she’d made was gathered up in a cheesecloth, so that it made a little pouch. She tied it off, dropped it in the cup, and left it to steep.  
  
“Now,” she said. “Let’s see that hand.”  
  
There was a clanging of metal- Decimus had retrieved the keys once more and was heading to the door of the Bull’s cell.  
  
“Come on,” he said, opening the door. “You’re next.”  
  
“What?” Dorian asked. “But he didn’t do anything!”  
  
“For the second part of the pageant,” Decimus explained testily.

Dorian said nothing, merely looked down at where Laurel was pushing his bones back into alignment. He didn’t look like that was causing him any pain, which was good: that must have been some kind of painkiller Laurel had given him.  
  
Decimus tossed his armor into his cell. The Bull forced his fingers to release from the cot in time to catch it, and put it on, stepping out of the clothes he’d worn when coming in from the ludus. The guards from the other ludeses shook themselves out of their reverie, and started to unlock their participants too.  
  
“You shouldn’t push,” Laurel said quietly.  
  
“I’m aware,” Dorian replied.  
  
“You don’t act like you’re aware.”  
  
As soon as he was dressed and having his horns attached, Decimus explained this round of the pageant to him. It was a different style- they’d be fighting in the teams decided by the votes of the audience since the first day of the games. He’d find out who he was fighting with when he entered the arena.  
  
Laurel swirled the paste-pouch around in the still-steaming glass, and knocked it against the side. The tea water turned a bright, clear green.  
  
“Drink this, slowly. Then get out of those clothes and wash yourself off- I’ll see if I can’t find something clean for you to change into.”  
  
She put down the standard wash kit they all got to scrub the viscera from the arena off: a small soft cloth, a larger, rougher one to dry off with, a bar of soap, a hunk of one of those weird squash-cucumbers, left out to dry until it became a natural sponge. The bucket of water was still steaming.  
  
Good. Someone should be able to provide some comfort for him.

The other gladiators from their antetheater who were fighting in this round were ready to go, so the Bull hefted his axe and started down the ramp with them.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This part of the story is new, and is not found on the kinkmeme.

Dorian sat on the edge of the massage table, regarding him intently.

“You will need to lay down for this to work,” Rilienus pointed out.

Dorian laid down. Rilienus took the first stone from the water kettle, patted it dry of water and then coated it in oil. He laid it out on Dorian’s spine, between his shoulder blades.

“You will have to let me know if the stone is too hot,” he said. Tranquility, among other things, distorted his ability to perceive pain.

“You don’t move your hands,” Dorian said.

Rilienus froze.

“When you talk, I mean,” Dorian said. “You used to do that all the time. Every time you opened your mouth, more or less. Do you remember?”

Ah, that. “Yes,” Rilienus replied. He took the second stone out of the pot.

His memories from before the brand were jumbled and incomplete, but still had a partial recall. He recalled, for example, an instance some years earlier: another afternoon whose light had illuminated Dorian’s bare back for him. He could recall Dorian’s fingers wrapping around his wrist, and the way his teeth had flashed as he laughed. The memory was soundless. He could not recall what had been said- he’d retained the impression of a quip about conducting a heavenly choir to accompany their orgasms, but could not remember which of them had said it- or any of the noise that they doubtlessly could have heard coming from the street below.

There would have been noise. They’d been in a safehouse, one of many they’d stayed in during that first year, after Dorian had been rescued from his father but before the war had broken out in earnest. They had been all over the place, in four separate cities, but each was in a crowded, lower class neighborhood, where there was never a moment’s peace or quiet. Lazing around in bed in the middle of the day was a new luxury for them, and one of the few they could afford, as being a revolutionary wasn’t exactly a paid position in those days.

It didn’t exactly pay later, either, but there had been more, enough that it had not seemed like they were relying on charity to subsist. They were high ranking enough to be billeted in relative comfort, and the room had come with board. Rilienus had his rounds as a healer, which came with gifts- mostly food, more than they could eat, but that could be giving over to the landlady in exchange for candles, or clothing, or just about anything else. If he needed a particular favor or item, then generally he could make some kind of trade involving medical care.

And then Dorian would come back, dripping with blood, ash, and whatever finery he’d pillaged from some maleficar’s boudoir after he’d killed them.

He’d always known that Dorian could be a violent man. It had been part of the attraction once- the hot temper, the passion, the _danger_ of him. But it had still shocked him, how easily Dorian had acclimated to a life that seemed to consist largely of fighting and killing and stealing from the resultant corpses.

“It used to drive me mad,” Dorian said, not without fondness.

Curious. Rilienus recalled that too, and fond did not seem an apt descriptor.

“A great many things did,” he said.

Dorian flinched. Rilienus wondered if he should insinuate that it was the heat of the stone- but no. Dorian would likely take it as an insult. Best to pretend he’d not seen it.

He layered the stones on Dorian in silence, covered his back with a towel, and had him turn over. He began to place more stones: his collarbone, his breastbone, his hips.

“I’m going to die tomorrow,” Dorian said.

Rilienus’ hands did stop moving, then, frozen on the towel.

“It is not the regular games season.” That had ended, nearly two months previous.

“No,” Dorian confirmed. “It’s a ludii victoria. They’ve taken Perivantium, apparently.”

“That is troublesome news,” Rilienus said. He’d been in Perivantium when he’d been captured- he’d known that it was going badly, but hadn’t known it was going quite that badly.

Dorian snorted, upsetting the stones. “That’s one word for it.”

Rilienus fixed the stones. They went through the rest of the massage in silence, then Dorian stood, and dressed, and hesitated on the threshold of the nook.

“I-” He reached out and grabbed Rilienus’ hand, pressing his lips to his knuckles. “I wish you weren’t here. Don’t take that the wrong way?”

Rilienus had had trouble, articulating what he disliked about the way things were between them. It was not merely that he’d been in favor of fleeing the country entirely whereas Dorian had wanted them to stay and become proper Lucerni. That, at least, they’d known. It was all that he hadn’t been able to anticipate: the way Dorian was so rarely with him, how he would come back with stories he refused to tell and scars he refused to speak of, how easily he did speak of killing and of violence, and how close he got with the other members of Gereon’s cell, when he seemed to get farther and farther away from Rilienus.

Truthfully, they’d both had trouble- but it had never seemed to bother Dorian, or, at least, Dorian had never bothered to try to voice his complaints anyway. Rilienus, on the other hand, had mostly just managed to say _I think I’ve made a very large mistake._

“I will take it in the spirit you intended,” Rilienus said.

Dorian smiled, or attempted to smile, and let Rilienus’ hand drop.

* * *

Rilienus was awoken early the following morning, so that he and the other Tranquil might stoke the hypocaust. Then they were busy pulling weeds and detritus from the main yard. They worked, as the sun rose, and then climbed higher and higher.

Their guards talked amongst themselves, ignoring them for the most part. It was in this manner that Rilienus learned that Dorian had no sponsor. He was not alone in this, amongst the gladiators Marini had selected to participate in the ludii victoria: there was a seven-gladiator minimum for participation. There was an elf, Yenko, who’d been selected so that she could have a fighter in the beast hunts, and three others who were thought to be good advertising: Iris, Audata, and Hillarion. The rest had sponsors, including the qunari, apparently known as the Iron Bull, and Crispin, who Rilienus had not thought of for some time.

The guards exchanged speculation for a time. And then one of the other Tranquil collapsed, as the strain of the work, coupled with the lack of food or water proved to be too much. There was a flurry of activity which followed this, causing guards to come rushing towards them, and slaves to peel off in the direction of the kitchens and the healer.

“You’re supposed to feed and water them on a schedule!” said one guard, who Rilienus had never seen but seemed to be in charge, judging by the way he spoke to the others.

“They seemed fine!”

“There’s a schedule!”

“They were fine, up until she collapse. Are you sure she’s not faking?”

“She’s Tranquil, she can’t fake shit!”

“So, what, I’ve got to hold her hand through everything?”

“Or grab one of the kids from the garden and give them the job!”

“Just any old kid.”

“Maker knows there are enough of them underfoot. Anyway, don’t bother with it now, there’s not enough time. The gladiators will be finished with their drills for the day and will need a massage.”

It was past noon- the sun was not quite low enough to be setting, but it was low enough that it was nearly evening. Dorian was very likely dead by now. The guard was quite correct about it being time to ready the massage tables- it was past time, to judge from yesterday.

“This is a mess,” muttered the guard who’d been watching them.

“Tell me about it,” replied her boss, and then clapped his hands as two of the children emerged from the kitchen, a large caldroun carried between them. “Okay, everyone! One cup of water per person for now, and then once you’ve finished cleaning up from the massages, there’ll be more with your meal.”

Rilienus deposited the last of his weeds in the wheelbarrow and lined up for his water. There was nothing else to do.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This portion of the story was posted on the kinkmeme in the period of June 14th- July 26th 2016.
> 
> Near the very end of the chapter, there is a (very non-graphic, implied) scene of non-con.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! Forgot to add the art by the lovely and talented [Nele](http://fanjapanologist.tumblr.com/).
> 
> And [here](http://i64.tinypic.com/2uf9enc.jpg) is a picture of the gladiators that I made in a dollmaker. From left to right: Iris, Crispin, Hillarion, Mara, Tavarius and Yenko.

You can’t think about your shit in a fight, especially not when you had to fight as part of a team. The fact that this was a play fight made no difference: he left his worries about Dorian on the ramp, and focused himself on the task at hand.  
  
They partnered him with what must have been two of the tiniest elves they had fighting: a Dalish mage named Hunith, and a twiggy little kid named Marcus who might actually hit that last growth spurt, if he was eating the same kind of meals as the Bull.  
  
Hunith was a nature mage: she could do lightning and a neat little stonefist trick, and wasn’t too bad with barriers either. Marcus was quiet, fast, and easily overlooked. The fight was a free-for-all: the last team left with members still standing won. That made their strategy seem clear to the Bull.  
  
“You stick behind me, Hunith,” the Bull said. “You cast barriers on us over the shit they’re already putting on us and call down a little electricity if it looks like we’re getting swarmed. Marcus, try and stay out of my blind spot, where I can see you, and go for them when I’ve got them distracted.”  
  
The elves nodded, and then the fighting began.  
  
For a time, it seemed like his plan was going to go off without a hitch. They stayed where they were, letting their opponents come to them, which they did one team at a time. Then someone realized that they were winning, and they were getting swarmed. Hunith called down lightning strike after lightning strike, the Bull swung with broad, sweeping strokes, and Marcus picked people off one-by-one, making them tap out with a dagger to their throat. It seemed impossible for a moment- there were too many bodies trying to press against him for him to swing his axe properly- and then Hunith called up a system of roots or vines or something that rumbled up through the arena floor and grabbed their opponents, incapacitating them.  
  
The vines disappeared as abruptly as they appeared, leaving the arena floor littered with gladiators frantically tapping out against the sand. The Bull turned around to check on Hunith.  
  
“Nice work,” he complimented her.  
  
Hunith had a hand clapped over the back of her neck. “He’s turned my collar back up!” she cried, sounding panicked.  
  
“Can you fight with your staffblade?” the Bull asked.  
  
Hunith nodded.  
  
“Marcus!” he shouted. “You and Hunith, back to back, now!”  
  
Marcus scrambled. And then he panicked, the blade of one of his daggers slicing through the barrier surrounding another scrawny elven kid, one a couple years older than he was, with a F branded on his cheek, and opening up his throat.  
  
“Oh no,” he moaned, pale-faced. He didn’t look like someone who’d never killed before: he looked like someone who’d been told _killing even by accident will do you no favors_.  
  
That made it easy to refocus him.  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” the Bull him, as soon as he was able. “Hey, look at me: it doesn’t matter, so long as we win. They’ll forgive us a lot if we win.”  
  
“But-”  
  
“Look, you can’t bring him back. Deal with the now,” the Bull snapped.  
  
Marcus nodded, and dealt with the woman trying to get the drop on Hunith in a less than lethal matter.  
  
There weren’t very many other teams left, and most of those which were left were hanging back, rather than engaging with one another.  
  
“Do you think we can’t tell what you’re doing?” the Bull called out to them. “If you were smart, you’d focus on trying to place second, instead of trying to defeat us.”  
  
He was surprised when that actually worked, and anarchy erupted among the other teams. He was less surprised when his last opponent turned out to be the Fog Warrior.

“What do you think you’re going to get from this, kid?” the Bull asked, deflecting swipe after swipe. Marcus and Hunith finished with the last remaining member of Fog Warrior’s team: he waved at them to keep back. “Revenge? Even if you managed to kill me, what would be the point? What would you gain?”  
  
“The satisfaction of watching you bleed,” the Fog Warrior snarled, lashing out with his maul.  
  
It was a wild strike, and it left him wide open. The Bull brought the haft of his axe down on his arm, and it popped out of joint. The kid staggered back, stepping in just the right way for the Bull to trip him up.  
  
The Bull expected him to tap out. Instead he discarded his shield, switched his maul to his offhand, and sprung back up with a snarl.  
  
_You’re even more stubborn than Dorian._  
  
He’d hoped that he’d left that kind of thought on the ramp, but it came on him now anyway, along with the image-memory of Dorian glaring out at Decimus from the corner of his cell. The distraction almost cost him a broken rib, and did cost him what felt like it might turn into a very nasty bruise, if it was allowed to sit for very long.  
  
Enough. The Bull hooked his axe under the maul’s head and sent the weapon spiraling away, and when he pushed the Fog Warrior down he went down with him, right on top.  
  
The kid snarled weakly, and tried claw at the Bull’s face with his good hand. The Bull pinned it down.  
  
“Look, I’m not your enemy. No one in this arena, no one you’re going to be fighting is your enemy,” the Bull told him. “You want to know who your enemy is? Look straight up.”  
  
The kid stopped struggling, and went limp.  
  
“Okay, so, I’m going to let go of your hand in a moment,” the Bull told him. “You can either tap out, or I can choke you out, your choice.”  
  
He tapped out. The Bull got back on his feet as the crowd started to roar.  
  
“Nice beating you, kid,” the Bull said, mostly so he had an excuse not to turn his back on him. He waited until the summa rudis was nearly on them before he turned back to Marcus and Hunith.  
  
“Ready for your victory spin?” he asked.  
  
“Victory… what?” Marcus asked.  
  
To answer him, the Bull scooped him up one handed; he yelped indignantly, clutching at the Bull’s paldron as his feet left the ground. Hunith caught on more quickly, and just about leaped into his free arm.  
  
“Wave, Marcus,” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth. “For Mythal’s sake.”  
  
His chances of survival were much greater if the crowd adored him along with Hunith and the Bull.  
  
Hunith and Marcus waved as the Bull spun them around, four times, the demons in their shapes all merging together to ape their movements. The crowd ate it up: they sounded delighted, though it seemed like no one could figure out what order to chant their names in.  
  
The summa rudis smiled at the Bull as he lowered them to the ground. His smile widened when the Bull held on to each of their hands, and bent low to give them a kiss like they were in the middle of some kind of fancy Orlesian ball. Then he straightened, and blew one up into the stands. The crowd certainly liked it. They liked _him_.  
  
Maybe he was going to get out of this after all.

* * *

Things went along in what seemed to be the usual post-game routine. He passed the next gladiators on his way back to the antetheater, dropped his axe off, had his horns taken off, stripped out of his armor. He scrubbed himself clean, put on the set of new clothes, and returned to his cell with his lunch.  
  
Dorian was back in his cell too: healed and cleaned and given a new set of clothes. He’d wedged himself back into the corner between his cot and the bars that separated his cell from the Bull’s and was sitting with his arms wrapped around his legs, his forehead resting on his knees.  
  
Arsinoe was back, and gave him a nod before turning back to her conversation with Phyllis. The guards had gathered around a briki, enchanted with some kind of lesser fire rune to keep their coffee on a simmer, and were mostly ignoring the gladiators in favor of their drink. That suited the Bull just fine. He knew what to say to Dorian now, the gist of it if not the words: he might not be able to promise him anything, but he could distract him a bit.  
  
The Bull shifted his cot out of the way, and sat down next to him. He settled his food on one side, and let his hand trail down by the bars, his fingers not quite poking through. If Dorian needed contact again, he could take it: if not, then there was no harm in offering.  
  
He waited to see if Dorian would acknowledge it. After a long moment of silence, apart from the noise coming from the arena, he said the first thing that popped into his head: “I spoke with Rilienus.”  
  
“Oh?” Dorian replied, though he didn’t move.  
  
“Yeah. He said he’s doing fine, getting enough to eat and not being bothered. He was happy to hear you were still alive.”

Dorian raised his head up to look at him. “He’s Tranquil.”  
  
“Well, he said that it was good news to hear, at least,” the Bull clarified.  
  
Dorian shrugged, and dropped his head back down.  
  
The Bull tried again. “Also, I’m not sure if you noticed, but I had clothes on when I got back in here.”  
  
“Ah, so that _was_ ceremonial nudity,” Dorian said, his voice muffled by his knees. “I had wondered.”  
  
“What’s the ceremony for?” the Bull asked.  
  
“Ritualistic humiliation on the one hand- gladiators have a weird position in Tevinter where they’re revered but also slaves, and it soothes upper class anxieties to emphasize that second part whenever possible,” Dorian told him. “On the other hand, this is all supposed to be symbolic of our rebirth as acceptable citizens of the Imperium, and one can hardly be born wearing clothing, so. Nudity it is.”  
  
“Huh,” the Bull replied. “And here I just thought they wanted to see a parade of tits, dicks, and asses.”  
  
“Shh,” Dorian said. “You’re not supposed to mention that part.”  
  
The conversation lulled for a bit. The current gladiator match came to a swift close, and then there was some kind of oration for a while. Dorian stopped hugging his knees so tightly. Iris suited up and left for her match. The Bull left his hand against the bars of the cage and groped for something else to talk about.  
  
“Marini’s having renovations done on the ludus,” he said finally.  
  
“Really?” Dorian asked. “What kind of renovations?”  
  
“A lot,” the Bull replied. “They’re doing something out by our cells, they’ve knocked down the eastern wall to the courtyard, and there’s another, bigger courtyard I think we’re going to be training in once it’s finished. There’s a gingko tree in the old courtyard, now.”  
  
_That_ got Dorian’s attention. He lifted his head and looked over at the Bull, a disparaging expression on his face.

“A gingko tree?” he repeated.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Is it a fruiting gingko tree?” Dorian asked.  
  
“It wasn’t when I left,” the Bull told him.  
  
“Lovely,” Dorian snorted. “That’s just what we need.”  
  
“What’s wrong with gingko?”  
  
“Have you ever smelled a gingko fruit?” Dorian demanded. “It smells like someone’s dog ate something Orlesian and then passed it out the other end in a steaming heap.”  
  
“Really? The scent always reminded me of an infected wound,” the Bull replied. “Or maybe vomit.”  
  
“As though that’s much better,” Dorian scoffed. “It’ll start dropping fruits down onto the courtyard, and they’ll get stuck to the soles of everyone’s feet, you mark my words.”  
  
“The nuts are tasty, though,” the Bull said.  
  
“That’s true,” Dorian admitted. “Perhaps we’ll even be afforded the chance to eat some of them.”  
  
His stomach growled, and he flushed and turned his head away.  
  
“Hungry?” the Bull asked.  
  
“Yes,” Dorian said with a sigh. “And before you ask, no, I’m not being denied a meal again today, technically. I was provided with lunch after I finished my match this morning, and Decimus took a nice long piss in it right in front of me.” He mumbled the last few words, and when he’d finished speaking he looked over his shoulder at Decimus: thankfully, the guard didn’t seem to have heard him. “I can’t help but get the impression that he doesn’t much like me.”  
  
The cymbals sounded out to let them know a serious injury had been dealt. Hopefully, Iris wasn’t the one who was injured.  
  
“His loss,” the Bull said, aiming for light. He missed it.  
  
“Ha.” Dorian grimaced at him, though it was clearly meant to be a smirk. “Don’t make that mopey face at me, I’ve certainly gone longer without food than a missed lunch.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“There was about six weeks, in between my capture and my trial,” Dorian said. He rested a hand on the lowest parallel bar of their shared cell wall, just barely an inch away from the Bull’s. “There was exactly one pattern I could use to tell the time with, and that was feeding: four days of nothing but whatever debris might have fallen into the water I was given, and then on the fifth day, there would be several hours of literally pouring food down my throat through a funnel.” He laughed, and it sounded tired. “Presumably I kept some of it down, seeing as I’m not dead, but it didn’t feel like it at all.”  
  
“They wanted information?” the Bull asked. Maybe that’s why the Archon needed Dorian alive- maybe he knew something they didn’t, and this was the most politically advantageous way to hold him while they figured out how to extract that intelligence.  
  
“At first,” Dorian said. “But we knew going to Minrathous as we did was a long shot. The only even partly useful information I had was the location of the safehouse we were supposed to get our further instructions at. I knew I only had to hold out on that for three days, and then they’d vacate the premises, if they hadn’t already when I was caught. I held out for a week- time enough to ward the place to explode upon forced entry, as it happened. Most of the information I gave out after that was just scandalous gossip about the magister in charge of my incarceration. That put an end to their questions very quickly- after that it was all about the demand for my confession, which I managed to refuse to give, as evidenced by my trial.”  
  
“What happened at your trial?”  
  
“I had one,” Dorian replied. “There would have been no need to call the Senate into session to declare me guilty if I’d admitted to wrongdoing.” He was silent for a while: they could hear the voting, and then the death trumpet. One of the gladiators from one of the other ludeses was already suited up and headed down the ramp.  
  
After a while, the sounds of the crowds reactions to the next match began to filter into the antetheater. Iris did not return.

* * *

 

“And you?” Dorian asked. He very carefully did not look in the direction of Iris’ empty cell.  
  
“And me what?” the Bull replied.  
  
“Well, I presume you didn’t have a trial,” Dorian said. “So. What was it like for you after you were captured?”  
  
“Awful.” The word slipped out before he could consider filtering it. “They got me in Marothius. I was there with Krem- you remember what I said about him?”  
  
“Krem de la crème?” Dorian asked.  
  
“That’s the one,” the Bull replied. “Anyway, we’d gotten word that his father was being kept in Marothius.”  
  
“The quarries?” Dorian asked, sounding a little horrified. His hands came up and clutched the bars between them.  
  
“Yeah. The quarries.”  
  
The slaves that were working those places were kept in pens, consisting of four high walls, a rotting thatched roof, and nothing else. He’d seen plenty of places with that set up on Seheron, but the ‘vints never had the chance to dig in there like they had in their own country. Those had been holding pens, meant to keep people contained until they could be shipped down to the mainland, to places like this. Places that stank of sweat and death and disease, filled to the brim with dust-covered people, packed in so tightly they couldn’t sit or lie down, and it was impossible to tell awake from asleep from dead. People who’d been working with bloodied hands and broken fingers, in so much pain that the only clean bit of skin on them was the tear tracks down their faces. People who didn’t even had that much, were too dehydrated to cry, or just too worn down, and blinked at the darkened road in silent incomprehension when they were told to run.  
  
“My father’s a tailor,” Krem had said after they hit the first quarry’s pens.  
  
“So you’ve said.”  
  
“It’s delicate work, tailoring,” Krem had continued. “You need a fine, steady hand.”  
  
“He doesn’t have to work, after we rescue him,” the Bull had said. As far as he was concerned, Krem’s father didn’t need to have any other role than being Krem’s father. “We can look after him.”  
  
“That would kill him, Chief,” Krem had replied. “Not being able to work would absolutely kill him.”  
  
“We didn’t want to leave him there,” the Bull told Dorian. “We didn’t want to leave anyone there, once we saw what was happening.”  
  
“I understand the feeling, believe me,” Dorian said.  
  
“I believe you,” the Bull said, and he did. “You’ve got quite the reputation.”  
  
“All lies and slander, I assure you,” Dorian drawled with a sharp-toothed grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

The Bull didn’t believe _that_. There had been a lot of rumors- a lot of exaggerations, and propaganda, and wild tales- about Dorian that he’d heard when he was travelling with Krem. The Bull was pretty good as shifting through all that chaff and finding what kernels of truth there were, and he was pretty sure the truth here was that Dorian had been behind the first few instances of burning down some of the nastier magister’s estates that had become a standard Lucerni practice.  
  
At the time, he looked purely for strategic reasons, and found a whole bunch of them. It threatened the magisters who had holdings down south, in territory that might be considered more Lucerni than Tevinter: they would all clamor for protection from the legion for their estates while they were in town, or else leave to guard them themselves, bogging down the Magisterium even more. It probably did the slaves who’d feared becoming their master’s next sacrifice good to watch their cages burn, and placated the part of the Lucerni base that howled for someone else’s blood besides theirs to be spilled for a change. At his most cynical, he thought that the razing would cover most of the evidence that the Lucerni might have taken some of the blood mages grimoires and research with them, to use for their own purposes. At his most idealistic, he thought it gave them the best chance to get away clean, and ensure that the slaves they saved weren’t tracked.  
  
Now that he could say that he knew Dorian a little, he could picture it a little clearer. Dorian would have been a couple of years younger, would have had his magic entirely at his command, and had a target for his anger, either given to him specifically by his handlers, or in conjunction with handlers who didn’t really care whose property he destroyed or who was killed as long as he got whatever they were after and aimed himself squarely at their enemies. That righteous anger that kept propelling him through these days would have a lot more dangerous then, with a target he could eliminate to focus it on, instead of the hopeless struggle they all had to contend with now. He would have seen something wrong, something like the shit that had been so common on Seheron, and he wouldn’t have stopped until he’d put an end to it.  
  
“Well, there are forty quarries that are considered public works in Marothius,” the Bull told him. “And even more that rent people out from the government. We managed to hit four of them before our luck ran out.”  
  
“Is- Is Krem dead?” Dorian asked. There was a trumpet blast: the current match was over.  
  
“I don’t know,” the Bull admitted. “We were passing by a bathhouse. Things had been bad for a while- we knew the city was about to fall. I guess that was too much for someone, because they went full rage abomination, and blew out the walls. I was pinned, Krem was bleeding out, the fucking rage demon thing was growling and trailing lava, and then I passed out. I woke up in chains, in the auction house’s slave pens. I was healed up, so you’d think someone would have noticed that I still had my tongue, but they were all real surprised when I asked what was going on a couple days later.”  
  
Dorian smiled. Well. The corner of his mouth lifted. His hand dropped back down from the bars, and he shifted, leaning in to face him more directly. “I sort of remember being dragged from the river. I remember feeling a women’s heel digging into the back of my skull, and there being a lot of talk about how pleased the Archon would be by my capture, and then thinking to myself ‘Well, I guess killing him didn’t work out as planned’. Then everything goes fuzzy. Allegedly, I was then dragged straight up to the Magisterium and flung before the Senate in chains. Left quite the sizeable mud-splatter too, by the sound of it.” He shrugged. “If that actually happened, I wasn’t conscious for the experience, so. Who knows what really happened?”  
  
“Any particular reason you doubt it?” the Bull asked.  
  
“At this point, if Erimond told me the sky was blue I’d want to hear corroborating evidence from a half-dozen nephologists before agreeing with him,” Dorian said with a snort. “And it’s the rainy season, so I’d be doubly right.”

“Sky was pretty blue when I was coming in,” the Bull said.  
  
“Really?” Dorian asked. “The whole way?”  
  
“Yeah,” the Bull replied. “That’s unusual for this time of year, I take it?” It would have been unusual for Par Vollen; on Seheron, the weather was about as predictable as everything else on the island.  
  
“Very,” Dorian explained, sounding personally offended. “This far west, mornings should be all mist and fog, which should burn off in the afternoon- not that that stops there from being intermittent downpouring sunshowers. And then in the evenings there should be thunderstorms. There should be wet and clouds and _rain_ in the rainy season.”  
  
“There should be typhoons,” Mara added.  
  
“Well, I’m not going to complain about the lack of natural disasters,” Dorian replied.  
  
“A drought is a natural disaster,” Mara pointed out. “It’s just a lot quieter than a typhoon.”  
  
“Surely we could have rain without there needing to be a typhoon,” Dorian argued.  
  
“You say that like a typhoon isn’t just a whole lot of rain,” Crispin said.  
  
“A typhoon is a whole lot of rain like the ocean is a whole lot of water,” Dorian protested.  
  
“So, you admit that I’m technically correct,” Crispin said.  
  
“I admit to nothing, other than your Vyrantian origins being pathetically obvious.”  
  
“Said the obvious Qarinid,” Crispin shot back.  
  
“I’m quite proud to be from Qarinus, thank you,” Dorian said. “Especially when it comes to typhoons, seeing as we get all the ones you never do.”  
  
Crispin snorted. “What was that saying Legate Pergamon had, Mara? A day without sunshine in Minrathous is like a day in winter in Qarinus?”  
  
“You might laugh,” Dorian said, as Hillarion started giggling. “But it’s true! The rainy season here in Minrathous is generally the sort of weather collection that makes up our misty season. You don’t even see the sun for days in the Qarinus rainy season, and if you do, there’s a good chance that’s because the eye of a typhoon is passing overhead.”  
  
“Well, I don’t remember what the Legate said about rain in Qarinus,” Mara said, her voice very firm. Hillarion stopped giggling for a second. “All I remember is what my grandmother used to say: that it takes a typhoon to break a drought.”  
  
“Well, all due respect to your grandmother, but I rather hope she had no idea what she was talking about,” Dorian replied, which set Hillarion off again. Dorian’s hand returned to the bars so that he could lever himself up just enough to see over the Bull and into his cell. “What is wrong with you?”  
  
“You’re a bunch of fucking coasties!” Hillarion replied, still laughing. “I just put it together!”  
  
The ‘vints all exchanged looks, and then Dorian looked to him.  
  
“Don’t look at me, I can’t help you with this,” the Bull said, so Dorian looked back out to Hillarion.  
  
“You’re seriously just putting this together now?” Dorian asked.  
  
“Tavarius and Yenko aren’t in with you lot, are they?” Hillarion asked Mara, instead of answering him.  
  
“Tavarius is from Carastes,” Mara told him.  
  
Hillarion groaned melodramatically, his head hitting the bars of his cell with a thunk.  
  
“I think Yenko is an inland boy like you, though,” Mara continued.  
  
“Really? That’s it? I’m the only one?” Hillarion demanded.  
  
“You’re the only one besides Yenko,” Dorian said.  
  
“But I’m the only soldier?” Hillarion pressed. “Or former soldier, whatever. That can’t be right. Two-thirds of the army are inland boys like me.”  
  
“I guess most of them had better luck not being caught in their own hometowns,” Mara drawled.  
  
“Oh, you’re from Minrathous, aren’t you?” Hillarion asked.  
  
“Asariel,” Mara said, jerking her thumb over the Dorian. “His father signed off on my commission as a centurion, actually.”  
  
“Wait, seriously?” Dorian asked. “I don’t remember you at all!”  
  
“Well, we weren’t exactly moving in the same social circles,” Mara pointed out dryly.  
  
“True enough,” Dorian said with a small smile.

* * *

 

The silence that fell over the members of their ludus after that was a strange thing, made all the more surreal by the circus music that was playing, accompanied by bursts of laughter. It seemed to have some kind of magnetism that pulled their gazes over to Iris’ empty cell.  
  
“She isn’t coming back,” the Bull said, because clearly someone was going to have to.  
  
“No, she isn’t,” Dorian said, equally helplessly. “Does anyone know where she’s from? Does she have any family?”  
  
“She’s from here, I think,” Mara said. “Minrathous. I don’t know about any family. Yenko might know- he and Iris came from the same auction, and you can tell they’d been looking out for one another since before they arrived.”  
  
They were going to have to tell Yenko she was dead. That was never a fun conversation to have.  
  
“Why do you ask?” Hillarion asked.  
  
“Because one of us should write a letter to her family, let them know that she’s passed,” Dorian explained.  
  
“How are you going to write a letter?” Crispin asked.  
  
“Well, after spending what now seems like a ludicrous amount of money on my education, my parents ensured I was literate,” Dorian replied.  
  
“Did they also teach you to hide inkwells up your ass?” Crispin retorted. “Because I don’t see how else we’re going to get the supplies to write a letter.”  
  
“Nonsense, we’re doing well, for a small ludus with a retinue of mostly untried gladiators. I’m fairly certain there are boons headed our way,” Dorian explained. “Or, well. Your way, at least. The Bull will probably get several.”  
  
“And you think that will include letters?” Mara asked.  
  
“I don’t see why not,” Dorian replied, sounding surprised. “I mean, I suppose they might have changed the rules since the rebellion started, but there were forever scandals involving letters written from distressingly handsome gladiators to the sons of their patrons.” He paused, before adding quickly. “Or their daughters.”  
  
“Could you write to my mother for me?” Hillarion asked eagerly. “Our family has a postbox in town. Someone there will be able to read it for her.”  
  
A shadow passed over Dorian’s expression, before he blinked it away. “Yes. Well. Provided Marini allows it.”  
  
“If she doesn’t let him, I’ll do it,” the Bull offered, his mind racing. Letters meant a way to contact Krem’s mother, or maybe even the viddathari agent, Subira, if he could think up a good enough excuse for wanting to write to her.  
  
“Thank you,” Hillarion told them.

Conversation lapsed again after that point. Mara was sent out, and then Crispin went out again for some kind of act that involved a lot of musical accompaniment.  
  
Dorian’s stomach growled again. He sighed, and said to the Bull “You might as well eat that. Not only will the day’s games be over soon and dinner served, but the smell is good enough to drive me mad.”  
  
“Huh. And here I thought I’d managed to scrub most of the musk off when I got back from the arena,” the Bull said. He got halfway to leering playfully before his brain caught up with his mouth and reminded him why, exactly, he was sitting so close to Dorian. “Uh.”  
  
Dorian didn’t look upset, or frightened. Mostly he just looked confused, like he couldn’t quite parse what he’d heard.  
  
“Sorry,” the Bull apologized. “That just kind of slipped out.”  
  
He’d let himself get complacent, lulled by the way no one else was acknowledging what happened. He’d forgotten that was an act of defiance, denying the guards their fear and allowing Dorian to maintain some dignity. He’d forgotten it was an act at all.  
  
This version of the Bull wasn’t very good at manipulating people, after all, because he wasn’t as aware of them. He didn’t see their weaknesses as keenly as he would under just about any other guise, and he’d given into the temptation to let that mask fit a little too tightly, so he didn’t get upset of how shitty this situation was for everyone in their own specific ways.  
  
Dorian still looked confused, but it was a different kind of confusion, one that said that he’d heard the words that the Bull had said but still couldn’t believe he’d said it.  
  
“It won’t happen again,” the Bull promised him, turning away towards the food.  
  
Dorian took his hand before he could pull it away, so he turned back.  
  
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Dorian said, in such low tones that the Bull had to strain to hear him.  
  
The words wrong-footed him, not in the least because he’d sat here to offer Dorian comfort, not to be reassured by him.  
  
“This isn’t really the place for it,” the Bull said.  
  
Dorian nodded.  
  
“And my timing was kind of shitty,” he continued.  
  
“Very shitty,” Dorian agreed. “Though, I’m not sure there’ll be a not-shitty time, per say.”  
  
“There’ll probably be a less shitty time.”  
  
“I certainly hope so,” Dorian said. His stomach growled again. “Oh, please just eat your food so I don’t have to smell it anymore.”  
  
“I can do that,” the Bull said, and got his meal.  
  
It was the same lunch that had been served the first two days of the games: stew and a hunk of crusty bread. The Bull studied it for a moment, and then took a look at the guards: Decimus pacing restlessly in front of the door, Arsinoe and the scar faced woman- Phyllis, was it?- were deep in conversation by Dorian’s cell, and the others were either absent or starting to inventory their weapons and armor in preparation for the day’s end.  
  
He’d take those odds.  
  
He broke his bread in half and took out some of the soft white insides, pinching down the rest against the crust until he had a kind of cup. Then he used it to scoop up some of his stew, making sure he got at least one chunk of meat.  
  
“Hey, Dorian.”  
  
Dorian turned back to him, and the Bull held the bread cup out the bars of his cell. It was just narrow enough to fit through: Dorian, with his slimmer fingers, should have no problem getting it into his cell.  
  
“I-” Dorian said, his eyes darting out, looking for guards.  
  
“Come on,” the Bull encouraged him. “If you can miss meals, I can miss a few bites.”  
  
After a moment more, to make sure the guards weren’t going to forbid it, Dorian reached out and took it with a small smile, the tips of his fingers brushing against the Bull’s hand as he did so.  
  
“Thank you,” he said.

* * *

 

* * *

Dinnertime was shortly after that. Crispin returned, and then they listened as the stadium seats were emptied and some of the gladiators from other luduses talked amongst themselves.  
  
The guard changed, bringing dinner with them; they all stood up, bowls at the ready for more stew, save for Dorian who hadn’t kept the bowl Decimus had pissed in earlier.  
  
“Well, I’m sure this will end well,” he muttered wryly.  
  
He was right, but not for any reason the Bull would have anticipated.

Before anything could be dished out, Decimus grabbed one of the arena’s guards by the arm.  
  
“You look hungry,” he told him. He reached back and grasped the ladle in the pot. “Here, why don’t you have a bite to eat?”  
  
“I’m alright, ser” the guard replied. “I’ll grad a bite to eat when the sandwich collection goes around.  
  
“No, truly,” Decimus said holding the ladle up to the other guard’s mouth. “I insist.”  
  
The guard said nothing. Decimus held the ladle right up to his mouth and he flinched away from it.  
  
“Eutychus?” asked one of the other arena guards.  
  
That did it. Eutychus squared his shoulders, opened his mouth, and swallowed.  
  
The Bull had been expecting it to be poison by that point, but it was taken aback by how quick it was. He was still swallowing when he began to go red in the face, and it took less than ten seconds for him to collapse on the floor in convulsions.  
  
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Decimus said, tossing the ladle back into the pot. His eyes swept over the room. “I think the next step is finding the ludus owners, and informing the office of the Editore.”  
  
“I’ll fetch Marini,” the elven guard volunteered.  
  
“Thank you, Cy,” Decimus said, and the room erupted in a flurry of activity that ended with several guards being sent to fetch various authority figures and Eutychus still twitching on the floor.  
  
“If you bring him over here, I might be able to purge the poison from his system,” Laurel said. “That way you could figure out who he was working for.”  
  
“That’s not a bad idea,” Decimus said, and Arsinoe and Phyllis rushed in to haul him over to the medical station.  
  
“I’ve seen this before, I think,” Dorian said. “Have vessels in his eyes popped? Is he bleeding in his mouth?”  
  
Laurel huffed, but turned him onto his side to check. A few droplets of blood hit the floor.  
  
“Yes,” Laurel reported. “Which poison is it?”  
  
“Venom, actually,” Dorian said. “Concentrated from those silk-moth caterpillars from Seheron, oh, what are they called?”  
  
“Lonomia,” the Bull supplied.  
  
“That’s the one!”  
  
“I’ll need an assistant,” Laurel said, her hands glowing with power as Eutychus stopped convulsing and went limp. Phyllis and Arsinoe looked at one another and then took a step back.  
  
“I used to be a medical auxiliary,” said one of the gladiators from another ludus.  
  
“That will do,” Laurel said, and Decimus unlocked her cell. There was a moment where she turned to the door, clearly imagining an escape, and then she rushed to the medical station instead.  
  
“It will have been hexed to react poorly to antivenom,” Dorian called out.  
  
“So I’ll have to counteract that first,” Laurel said. “Great. I’ve got supplies for antivenom in the little chest all the way on the left, bring that over here, please.”

Dorian watched them work with a strangely intense expression on his face: a frown that pinched his eyes together and wrinkled his forehead. He was leaning back against the bars of the Bull’s cell, which made it easy to get his attention.  
  
“Do you know him?” the Bull asked quietly, pitching his voice low enough that it wouldn’t carry very far.  
  
“No, but I rather suspect he was supposed to kill me,” Dorian replied, his voice equally low.  
  
“You specifically?” the Bull asked.  
  
“Yes I-” Dorian looked confused, and then abruptly didn’t. “Right, you weren’t there. You remember how Marini said that I was taking the place of a gladiator who was poisoned? The next day when we were all at the baths, we discovered that it had been Ursula Odovacar who had died, a Lucerni and former Altus. And then the day after that we heard that Octavian Callinicus was found hanging from the rafters in his antetheaters’ receiving room. Another Altus, technically, though seeing as he had no magical ability his parents had disowned him and given him over to Templars. I suspect that’s why he joined our side during the rebellion. And today we learned that Nero Thrasamond, a healer here at the arena, had been smothered overnight. He was also an Altus- I went to school with an older brother of his, for a given definition of went, by which I mean I injured him rather badly in a duel. I didn’t even know he’d joined the Lucerni, but I doubt he ended up here on a lark, so…”  
  
“So someone’s been working their way through the Lucerni’s Altus ranks, and you’re next on their list,” the Bull concluded.  
  
“I thought that magister from earlier was here to do it,” Dorian confided. “False alarm, I suppose.” He snorted bitterly. “I might be the only one left, even if they’re going after the likes of poor Octavian in the course of their vendetta. We were never particularly popular among the Altus class. It was part of the appeal, really.”  
  
Not for the first time, the Bull wondered what it was, exactly, that had made Dorian want to fight his own country. This wasn’t really the time to ask those sorts of questions, though, so he settled back to wait as Laurel and the woman whose name he should really learn sooner rather than later tried to save the life of the man who’d nearly murdered the entire antetheater’s worth of gladiators.  
  
It was kind of funny, really. If he’d tried it when they were all about a quarter of a mile to the right, he’d probably have gotten a round of applause.

* * *

By the time Marini and the others returned, Eutychus was proclaimed in stable condition: they could start asking their questions whenever he woke up. They got the run-down from Laurel and Decimus as to what, exactly had happened, taking in the information with unusually solemn expressions on their faces.  
  
“I presume, given the breadth of the target, that your people will be handling the inquiry?” Marini asked the elf wearing some very officious robes. The Bull assumed that he was with the Editore’s office.  
  
That sparked off a little debate about jurisdiction and propriety that was pure spectacle, ending with everyone agreeing with Marini, but only in such as way as to make it seem like they’d come up with the idea first. Fresh arena guards had accompanied the official in: they bound Eutychus, ankle and wrist, and then loaded him onto a stretcher to be carted off, accompanied by the shaken guards who had come in with him and Laurel.  
  
The official left shortly after that, and then one by one the other ludus owners took their leave of their guards, and then it was just Marini who was hanging around to discuss things with Decimus. Probably she knew more about whatever was going on with the dead gladiators than any of them heard, and wanted to make sure that Dorian would stay alive until she’d gotten whatever the Archon wanted out of him.  
  
They still hadn’t had dinner, or received any food to replace the poisoned cauldron when she finished talking with him, and the Bull was the one who would have the best chance at making sure that they did have something to eat, so he spoke up.“Ma’am?”  
  
Marini stopped, and turned to face him, her eyebrow arching. “Yes, Iron Bull?” she asked.  
  
“I was wondering what we were going to eat for dinner, ma’am,” he replied.  
  
For a long moment, she said nothing, and the Bull was sure that the answer was going to be ‘no’. Then she shrugged. “You were all keen to discuss the food from the bazaar the other night. I’m sure something can be arranged.”  
  
She looked over to Decimus, who nodded. That was the end of their conversation, apparently, because she continued on out the door without another word.  
  
Decimus walked over to the chest where they kept their funds and took a quick look. They had plenty to go around, apparently, because the next thing he said was “So. What does everyone want to order?”

At first, it seemed like what everyone wanted to order was chaos.  
  
For one thing, while Marini’s ludus apparently had the money for it, two of the other luduses did not, which sparked an argument over how food would be procured for those gladiators. In the end those ludus owners had to be brought back down from the party they could hear starting up overhead to authorize the expense.  
  
They weren’t happy about it, but enough gold was forked over to resolve the matter quickly: then they had to actually order food.  
  
After so long of meatless soups and the occasional stew for dinner and lunch, of the same fruits and gruel for breakfast, and of the same crusty bread and tonics with every meal, everyone wanted something. Everyone wanted several somethings, and people kept changing their minds about what they wanted and where they wanted it from mid-order.  
  
The Bull decided that as long as things were in chaos anyway, he might as well press his luck “Are we allowed to order dessert?”  
  
“Dessert?” Decimus repeated flatly. Arsinoe, who was trying to take everyone’s orders down, looked up at him in disbelief.  
  
“Yeah,” the Bull confirmed with a shrug and a sheepish smile. “I haven’t had real chocolate in years. The others said that there was someone out in the bazaar who’s selling it, so.”  
  
“If we’re having dessert, then I’d like…” Hillarion began.  
  
He was cut off by Decimus banging his truncheon against the bars of Dorian’s cell. Dorian, who had given his order already, shot him a dirty look but managed to hold his tongue.  
  
“You’re not getting dessert, no one is getting dessert, _fasta vass_ , what is wrong with you people?” he groused.  
  
The Bull said he’d like seafood, so whatever was under that category and easy to get would be good for him. Decimus and Arsinoe turned their attention back to Crispin, who was agonizing about what kind of souvlaki to order, now that he’d decided on souvlaki.  
  
The guards from each ludus left in groups of two or three as they got all their orders sorted out. It was hours before they started to return, trailing food-laden street kids and greeted by thunderous applause.  
  
“I’ve got good news for you, Bull,” Arsinoe said once she returned. Shirin was right behind her, leading the string of street children carrying their meals and looking very pleased with herself.  
  
“You got me some really good seafood?” the Bull asked.  
  
“Yes. But more importantly: Subira, the chocolate woman? She saw your fight today, and sent you a box with her compliments.”  
  
Arsinoe plucked out a small box from the top of pile being carried by Shirin, and held it out to him. Decimus intercepted, a sour expression on his face.  
  
“We just had an attempted poisoning!” he protested.  
  
“They aren’t poisoned, I checked,” Arsinoe said.  
  
“Checked how?” Decimus demanded.  
  
“I had her eat some first,” Arsinoe replied.  
  
“The chocolates she picked out?” Decimus challenged.  
  
“No, I picked them out,” Arsinoe said. “And then Shirin bravely volunteered to try another piece just to be sure.”  
  
Decimus looked down at Shirin, who beamed up at him. He sighed, and let Arsinoe hand him the box of chocolates, and then his actual meal.

It was some kind of mild-tasting fish, which had been cut into chunks, rubbed down with vinegar and spices (cilantro and garlic, mostly, it smelled like), skewered and then roasted over an open flame. The fish had been slathered in some kind of hot chili pepper paste, which the Bull appreciated a lot, and then laid down in a bed of some kind of soppy mango chutney that was already soaking through the layers of wax and cotton that made up the platter they’d been sent to him on. The Bull appreciated that a lot less.  
  
He wasn’t starving, and there was plenty else for him to eat here, so he didn’t technically have to eat the chutney. But he didn’t want to throw food away either, not when there would be people less than a mile away going hungry tonight.  
  
That left a trade.  
  
Crispin had been pretty eager to try as much as he could, so he turned to him only to find that he’d finished his meal, and was busy licking the remainder of the sauce off of the platter.  
  
“What?” he snapped when he caught the Bull looking.  
  
“You’ve got something on your nose,” the Bull said, tapping his own with a grin.  
  
Crispin scowled as he wiped it away. The Bull turned to face Dorian, who was eating at a much more sedate pace.  
  
“Hey, Dorian,” he said, holding up his soggy platter. “Want to trade a couple of those sembusas for the rest of my dinner?”  
  
Dorian shot the platter a suspicious look. “Why? What is it?”  
  
“Mango chutney, mostly,” the Bull said. “There’s also some chili pepper paste. It probably also tastes a little like fish.”  
  
“Is the paste hot or sweet?” Dorian asked.  
  
“Hot.”  
  
Dorian hummed in consideration. “Tell you what, throw in one of those chocolates and you’ve got yourself a deal.”  
  
The Bull fumbled the top off of the box of chocolates and checked. While he didn’t doubt that Subira had left him some sort of message, a glance told him that it wasn’t on the chocolates themselves. Good thing too, considered some of them had been eaten before he’d gotten to them. “You want the kind with jelly or the kind with nuts?”  
  
“Surprise me,” Dorian said, so the Bull plopped one of each into the chutney, making Dorian smile.  
  
It took a bit of wrangling to exchange the food. The sembusas were easy: the Bull handed over one of the skewers he’d sucked clean of fish, and Dorian carefully poked it through four of sembusas that had come from the score that had made up his meal. The chutney was more difficult to manage: the Bull did his best to shape the platter into a kind of cup so that it was able to fit through the bars without spilling anywhere. Some of it did end up splashing out as it went through, sloshing over the front and onto Dorian’s arm. Once he had the platter safely on his side of the bars, Dorian sucked it off his skin with a pleased noise.  
  
“Really? You didn’t want this?” he asked, dipping two of his fingers into the chutney on the platter.  
  
“Maybe I just really wanted some sembusas,” the Bull replied, popping one into his mouth.  
  
“You don’t even know what kind they are!” Dorian protested as the flavor of beef spiced with coriander and cumin burst on the Bull’s tongue.  
  
“I know you can’t ruin sembusa,” the Bull replied, his mouth still full.  
  
Dorian made a disparaging noise, but was too busy eating to properly reply.

* * *

As everyone finished eating they all began to talk amongst themselves. Dorian tried to discuss the history of the games and the shift away from state-owned luduses to private ones (“There was some concerned that a ludus’ gladiators might be used as a private army. Then people realized that any magister worth the title would be able to hire a private army on the spot whether they owned a ludus or not.”) only to be dragged into an argument about which chariot racing team was better.  
  
“It’s not like I care,” Dorian protested. “It’s simply baffling to me that you could even think that any team could stand against the Black-and-Golds.”  
  
One of the guards- one of the arena guards, a new guy the Bull hadn’t seen before- started to argue with him, before being cut off by one of his fellows.  
  
“Don’t argue with the slaves,” she told him.  
  
Judging by the expression on Dorian’s face, he literally bit his tongue to keep from responding.  
  
Conversation then turned to whether or not people thought they had a chance to get their rudis, and what that might mean, and the Bull let his attention to it drift. He had chocolates to eat, after all.  
  
There were twenty-four chocolates in all, an incredibly pricey amount here in Minrathous: cocoa might be coaxed into growth in the eastern portion of Tevinter, and on ‘vint strongholds on Seheron, but here in the western part of the mainland it was too arid to be local produce. They were the little dollops of chocolate that had been melted down and then reconstituted around a nugget of jelly or nut; it was a child’s treat under the Qun, one made from the cocoa scrapped off of the insides of caldrons used to make it into the more usual drink. He remembered hearing that they were popular in Rivain, and it certainly sounded like they’d found a following here.  
  
He popped one into his mouth. Only years of honing his self-restraint stopped him from spitting it back out again. That was _not_ chocolate he’d just put in his mouth. It tasted great, but it was nowhere near bitter enough to be chocolate.  
  
He had another, a darker-colored piece with a bit of strawberry jelly in it, rather than a macadamia nut. _That_ tasted more like he expected, if still too sweet. It also made him notice the pattern left behind on the little wrappers: little squiggles of color against the cream white background that didn’t look like much on their own, until you realized that they were all part of a letter in Qunlat. It was a puzzle, a cipher. He’d have to fit the wrappers together, probably multiple times, each color corresponding to an encrypted line of her message.  
  
He couldn’t do that here. It was too risky, with all the guards hovering around. His best bet would be to act like he was saving the chocolates to eat until the end of the games, and see if he couldn’t bring the box back with him. He would be able to put everything together back in his cell at the ludus.  
  
It might seem a bit weird that he would hold on to the box, though. He should probably start trying to hoard whatever he could, or get a reputation for collecting things he found pretty.  
  
Still, nothing he could do about it now. He stuck it beneath his pillow, and turned his attention back to conversation.

“Then there was a scandal about, I don’t know, ten years ago?” Dorian was saying. “A sagittarius earned her rudis, and was immediately hired by one of her patron’s biggest rivals as a bodyguard, do you recall?”  
  
“What’s scandalous about that?” the Bull asked.  
  
“Patrons are traditionally allowed first rights to a newly-freed gladiator’s services,” Dorian explained. “For her former owner to have arranged for the gladiator to sell her bow to her patron’s rival before her patron could decided whether he wanted it was a great insult.”  
  
“Wait,” Hillarion said slowly. “This sagittarius- was she an elf?”  
  
“Yes. Dev- something or other. Devra? Devara?” Dorian replied.  
  
“And the scandal was that she went to work for a rival of her patron, rather than her patron?” Hillarion asked.  
  
“That was the version told in Altus circles,” Dorian said slowly. “I take it the Soporati had it differently?”  
  
“Yeah- well. People were upset because she wasn’t former military, like a lot of gladiators are,” Hillarion said. “You know, before the rebellion, a lot of people would come back from Seheron and just not be able to handle the change- or their money. So they’d sell themselves to a ludus, and if they survived to get their rudis, things would be better- you’d have great references, and could be hired as bodyguard. Almost every family in my area of Tevinter has at least one person in the army, and a lot of those ended up in the arena. Quite a few people felt she’d stolen a chance at getting one of our people back.”  
  
Dorian opened his mouth to reply, then turned slightly towards the guards and reconsidered whatever it was he was going to say. “Did you hear about this, Crispin?” he asked instead.  
  
Crispin shook his head. “I was just back from Seheron ten years ago. Celebrity gossip just made me want to tear my hair out.”  
  
“I’d heard both stories,” Mara said.  
  
“Oh?” Dorian asked.  
  
“Yeah, I’m the exact opposite of him, I love hearing all the twaddle when I get home. And two of my sisters are mages so I get all the really good gossip,” Mara said.  
  
“Really? You’re from a Laetan family?” Hillarion asked.  
  
“If two out of five daughters make it a Laetan family rather than a Soporati one,” Mara replied with a shrug. “And anyway, technically Elisheva’s an Altus now- she was elevated when she married her husband. That is a funny story, actually. It all started when Carolus Bingemond moved into the manor house on-”  
  
“Devera,” interrupted one of the gladiators from another ludus, very urgently. “That elf you were talking about earlier- could her name have been Devera?”

“Possibly?” Dorian replied. “I don’t really recall.”  
  
Mara harrumphed, displeased by the interruption. The other gladiator ignored her. “And her employer- was he a maleficar?”  
  
“He probably used blood magic,” Dorian confirmed warily. “He was a magister, and most of them do, if only in private.”  
  
“Why? Do you know her?” the Bull asked. He doubted it: he had no idea what Devera looked like, beyond ‘elf’, which this guy had in common with her, but judging by his accent he was also Fereldan. That made it unlikely that he knew anyone who was here ten years ago.  
  
“Maybe,” the other gladiator hedged.  
  
Dorian shrugged. “His name was Caladrius. To the best of my knowledge, the pair of them disappeared some years ago. He was supposed to be heading up some kind of humanitarian mission to Fereldan during the Blight, which is the sort of statement I used to be able to take at face value.”  
  
“No kidding,” the elf replied. “That’s how I ended up here.”  
  
“Ah,” Dorian replied.  
  
“I’m Ellias,” the elf introduced himself. “Ellias Oriel, of Denerim.”  
  
“Dorian, formerly of House Pavus, in Qarinus,” Dorian introduced himself.  
  
The Bull had never heard Dorian introduce himself before- there hadn’t been a need. He took note of the word ‘formerly’.  
  
“Shite. I mean, I knew you were one of them,” Ellias tapped his cheek instead of saying the word Lucerni. “But you were a real important one, yeah?”  
  
“Allegedly,” Dorian confirmed with a strained smile.  
  
That was when Decimus banged his truncheon against the bars of Dorian’s cell. Dorian jumped about half a foot into the air and whirled around. “What did I do now?”  
  
Decimus raised an eyebrow. “Lights out, time for bed.”  
  
Dorian rolled his eyes and slumped down onto his cot as the torches inside the antetheater were extinguished. He wasn’t the only one: apparently while he was gone, that had come to mean ‘stop talking now’, so the Bull followed suited and settled down as comfortably as he could to wait out the night.

* * *

Not much more than an hour had passed and the Bull had managed to find a spot comfortable enough for a light doze when he was woken up by the sound of jangling keys and the turning of the lock on the door of his cell.  
  
“They’re asking for you upstairs, Iron Bull,” Decimus said softly.  
  
Next to him, the Bull heard Dorian inhale sharply, the air hissing through his teeth. He ignored the sound, and stood.  
  
The guards didn’t lead him upstairs right away. Instead he went down, where a small tub full of steaming water was waiting for him in a niche down the hall from the entrance, along with two hollow-eyed elven slaves, an array of smelly oils and soaps, and Marini herself.  
  
“Step out of those clothes and into the tub,” Marini said with a sniff. “Don’t forget your eye patch.”  
  
The Bull complied. Immediately, the two slaves began scrubbing away as him.  
  
“The people you are about to be presented to are all wearing more wealth on their fingers than Aulus will ever touch in the whole of his life,” she told him. One of the slaves got on a ladder in order to dump a bucket of water on his head. “It will benefit us both if you were to gain a sponsor tonight.”  
  
“Yes ma’am,” the Bull replied. The slave standing on the ladder was handed a bottle of oil by her peer, and began massaging his scalp with it.  
  
Marini looked at him askance, and then scoffed. “There are rules for this sort of thing. You must address me as ‘Mistress’. You may address the other women you see tonight as ‘ma’am’, and the men as ‘ser’. Do not make eye contact with anyone unless directed. Do not speak unless asked a direct question. You do not eat or drink anything but what I give you. Should you be offered food or drink by anyone else, decline politely, and say that I have restricted your diet and you must ask me before eating anything. Understood?”  
  
“Yes, Mistress.” He jumped only a little when the slave still at floor level took another bottle of oil and went straight for his crotch.  
  
Marini nodded in apparent satisfaction of his acceptance, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “Any questions?”  
  
“Not about the party…” the Bull said tentatively, testing the water a bit.  
  
“About the fuss earlier, I take it?” Marini replied. “You needn’t worry. I take good care of my property- that former guard is being handled as we speak.”  
  
“Actually, Mistress, it was about the elf I was fighting with in the pageant earlier,” the Bull said. “Marcus- the one who killed that guy. Is he going to be okay?”  
  
“He should be fine,” Marini said, sounding surprised. “He won the pageant, thanks to you, and it was hardly his fault that the barrier failed. At worst, he might be flogged when he returns to his ludus, but I doubt it. His owner is dull, but hardly so dull as to punish success. If anyone is suffering tonight due to that accident, it’s liable to be the attendant who failed to reinforce the barrier. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they’ve been sacked.”  
  
“Oh. I didn’t think about it like that, Mistress,” the Bull replied, which wasn’t true. Still, it was nice to get confirmation. Marcus probably hadn’t even stopped growing yet. He should at least be able to live long enough for that.  
  
Marini motioned for him to step out of the tub. The slaves patted him dry of excess oil and water alike, and then swaddled him in a loincloth. It was a much fancier loincloth than the one Dorian had worn on the first day of the games, one dyed a rick dark green and then embroidered with metallic electrum thread, forming a border around the cloth, and the outline of a gingko leaf right over his dick.  
  
That probably significant, but heraldry wasn’t really his thing. He’d ask Dorian about it later. For now, he just put his eye patch back on.  
  
“Let’s go,” Marini said the moment the slaves had stepped back. She turned and left, and the Bull followed without a word.

* * *

 

As far as parties went, this one wasn’t especially fun.  
  
“ _Vishante kaffas_ , look at the size of him!”  
  
The actual partying being done seemed to be pretty dull for everyone, actually. It was a lot of people in fancy clothes eating little bite-sized pieces of food and sipping from champagne flutes, looking like they were doing everyone else a favor just by being there.  
  
“I know! I thought it was just the elves making him look that way at first, but he’s really huge!”  
  
There wasn’t anything particularly strange about that. He’d gone to parties like this is Orlais. They were more an excuse to network than anything else: people came to show their influence, make connections and deals, size up the competition. He’d gotten jobs at parties like this. He’d done jobs at parties like this. He’d celebrated successful jobs at parties like this. The main differences were that here, people openly spelled their drinks to check for poison and laid down on couches rather than standing.  
  
And, of course, the fact that he wasn’t in control.  
  
“Is it safe for it to be unchained like that? For us, I mean?”  
  
“Perfectly safe. He’s quite docile, I assure you.”  
  
“Are you quite sure? I mean, do you remember Magister Antilia? He claimed for years that the qunari could be civilized, even got himself a little saarebas at the auctionhouse in Qarinus, and petitioned for her to be allowed into a Circle.”  
  
“Can you imagine? It’s bad enough that they’ve all got to allow the liberati and elves in, but a _qunari_?”  
  
“He ended up having her tutored privately, at great expense, as you might well imagine. And she still ran off to join the Lucerni at the first opportunity.” The woman clucked her tongue.  
  
“My dear Altus Sequnda, I make no claim to have civilized Iron Bull,” Marini said. “Only that he is docile.”  
  
Both Marini and Sequnda laughed. Then Sequnda reached under his loincloth and gave his cock a squeeze, her long nails digging into his flesh. He inhaled sharply.  
  
“No, he has not been gelded,” Marini said.  
  
“Oh my,” Sequnda said breathily. “And you’re proportional, aren’t you?”  
  
It was the first time he’d been even kind of not talked over, and he jumped on the chance to speak. “I was bred for size, ma’am.”  
  
“Oh Maker,” Sequnda said, turning back to Marini and, thankfully, letting him go. “You’ve let him keep his tongue.” It was obvious it wasn’t the fact that he could speak that interested her.  
  
It was kind of inevitable, what happened after that; he’d been expecting it since Decimus had come to collect him from his cell. Gold changed hands in front of him this time, and he was kind of amused to discover that his tongue was apparently worth an entire Dorian.  
  
The party ended shortly after Sequnda was done with him. One of the slaves another one of party-goers had brought with him turned blue and collapsed, obviously poisoned.  
  
Marini sighed as she lead him downstairs, away from the ruckus. “Enchanter Massinissa will have poisoned his man himself, I’ll bet,” she remarked. “He always did like to inflate his sense of importance, and narrowly escaping an assassination attempt makes him seem of consequence.”  
  
She peeled away with two of the guards once they reached the niche, apparently returning to the caravanserai she was staying at. That left him alone with Decimus and three arena guards.  
  
They were all visibly impatient with him, and he wasn’t really in the mood to aggravate them. He cleaned himself off quickly, spending more time trying to get the taste out of his mouth than anything else. He kind of regretted that once he was safely back in his cell. He could still feel the grease from her fingers on the back of his neck, and it itched.  
  
“Are you alright?” Dorian asked, quietly enough that the guards probably didn’t hear him over Mara’s snoring.  
  
“I’m fine. Go back to sleep,” the Bull replied, and that was the end of the night.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter of the story is new, and cannot be found on the kinkmeme.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter carries a REAL BIG TRIGGER WARNING for harm to children.

Her parents were foreigners, stolen from some alienage somewhere down south. She was born on the ship that brought them here. Her parents loved her very much. She knows that, because they hid her, so she wouldn’t be sold into slavery with them.

That’s what she tells herself, anyway.

Somewhere deep down, she knows that it’s probably not true. (It’s a nice story, though.) The truth is, her parents were probably free, and poor, and could neither afford to provide for another mouth to feed nor find a slaver willing to buy yet another skinny elven babe, and left her in a refuse pile somewhere.

People do that. There are some neighborhoods where it’s odd to not see at least one baby left by the side of the road.

She’d brought one back once. Puny little thing a little older than most left behind, with pretty eyes (eyes just like hers). Enna had nursed him, and he’d grown into a giggly toddler, and then a slow and slightly clumsy little boy.

Enna had little use for clumsy, or slow. She’d chopped off his hand, and twisted his foot, and set him out to beg. It took less than a month for him to just disappear.

Iris won’t pick up any babies any more. She avoids those neighborhoods as much as possible. Slim pickings, anyway.

* * *

 

The Seven Bells aren’t a part of the Praesumptorum, but oh, how Enna wants to be, how Enna wants to be.

She trains only the best and brightest of the children she saves to be her pickpockets and thieves. Those who fall short must be mutilated and beg, and try to make up for the resources she’s wasted on them. Those who are worthy must work off their debts, and work hard.

There’s the training, of course. The food, the roof over your head, your clothing, your daggers, any medicines you might need.

(Don’t get sick. Whatever you do, don’t get sick.)

And on top of all that, the interest. Always the interest, sneaking up on you just when you thought you might be getting free.

You can’t leave until you’ve paid your debt back. It’s in the contract (none of you can read, but it’s there all the same). You accepted her help (as a baby, as a child, and now, when you’re all grown up but no one else would ever help the likes of you). You have to pay her back. You don’t have a choice.

* * *

 

She tells herself the story so many times that she can almost picture it.

Her mother would have tucked the blanket around her (a blue blanket, her favorite color), and then she would have had to turn away, so Iris wouldn’t see her cry. Her father would have watched her a little longer (with his eyes just like hers).

“Grow up strong, little one,” he would have said, maybe, or “I love you. We both do.”

Then they would have put the top back on the barrel, and waited, and hoped that she was on her way to freedom.

(Sometimes she even imagines that they hope for her still, somewhere.)

* * *

 

She first hears of the Lucerni in a marketplace. It was in a poorer neighborhood, one of the ones she keeps trying to avoid. She’d had to duck in here, to avoid the guard. She doesn’t look too closely, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t listen.

“That quaestor’s been taking our money for years, going on and on about the interest rate and the cost of living, and it’s all tripe, isn’t it? I’m never going to pay back that debt, not even if I marched in there with a hundred gold. I’m never going to get my husband back.”

“He probably skims a lot off the top.”

“He probably takes the whole lot, and has us marked down as delinquent,” the first woman says. “For all we know, Navide is dead.”

“Come on, you’d get a letter.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Alina got a letter.”

“Yeah, after the quaestor charged her a entire gold for it.”

“But she was told that there was a letter. You haven’t been told.”

The first woman was silent for a moment. Then the second woman spoke again.

“You know, Paula, if you want to know for sure-”

“No, no. You shut it with that kind of talk.”

“I’m only saying that-”

“Isha, no.”

“The Lucerni healed me, when that mugger slashed up my face. And they didn’t ask for even a single copper. And they’re doing things, real things that matter. I bet they’ll look into things with the quaestor for you, if you go to them.”

“Of course they didn’t charge you, why would they Isha? The Lucerni have you talking them up for free.” Paula sighs. “It’s just politics. Mark my words- six months from now it’ll all turn out that their leader is a magister and this was their idea of a game that got a little out of hand.”

Iris leaves then. There’s a baby crying nearby, and she doesn’t want to see if it’s alone.

* * *

 

What would they be, if they’d lived? Who were her parents?

(They were freeborn and poor, and made the same choices everyone makes, sooner or later.)

Foreigners were often sent to the mines: there they last about five years before dropping dead of something. But sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes, they had skills- they were fighters, or scribes, or even craftsmen. Sometimes, they survived.

(They chose companionship over loneliness. They chose food and rent over the herbs that would prevent a child from taking. They chose whatever older siblings or aging grandparents Iris might have had over another mouth to feed.)

Maybe they’d been taken because of their skills. They might have ended up with a decent master, one who would see that they weren’t too harshly treated, and had food every day. They might still be alive, even now, what must be nearly twenty years after Iris had been born.

(It wasn’t true. She’d made it up. She knew that.)

It would explain how they were able to get their hands on the barrel.

(There was no barrel, she knows that, she knows it, and yet, she doesn’t know anything at all, does she?)

* * *

 

Six months pass, and then everyone hears of the Lucerni. They’re behind the dockworkers’ revolt in Vyrantium. They’re behind the slave uprisings in the quarries of Marothius and the silk houses of Perivantium and the mines of Solas, and the fields of Nessum, Caimen Brea, and Trevis. They’re behind the mass mutiny that knocks the army back by about half its usual strength. And then they’re not behind it at all, they’re at the head of it, a Rebellion throughout the whole of the Imperium.

Every slave that runs off now is said to run off to them.

And a lot of slaves, it seems, are running off.

“I’ve heard from my husband,” says one of the women in the market. She might be Paula. (She probably isn’t, but she could be.) “He’s alive. The Lucerni freed him, he says.”

Enna says nothing about it. She counts the coin Iris gives her, and nods approvingly. Iris goes to sleep with her stomach full of stew and her head full of ideas, and knowing better than to ask.

What if there might be a man with her eyes and a woman who didn’t want to let Iris see her cry? What if they might be alive, and looking for her? What if, what if, what if...

(What if it was real after all?)

* * *

 

Someone tried to buy her off of Enna once.

Edekon comes around every so often to check on the kids Enna had taken in. He doesn’t take the real little ones, but anyone that can already walk and talk already are fair game.

She wasn’t very small, when he tried to buy her: she was ten maybe, or twelve, somewhere around there. Old enough to have started working for Enna properly.

“She’s got pretty eyes,” he said. “Lots of people will want her, in a few years. I’ll give you ten gold.”

Enna sniffed derisively. “She brought back twice that much yesterday alone. If _you_ want her, you’ll have to do much better than that.”

Edekon raised an eyebrow and bought one of the boys instead. Enna added ten gold to the money Iris owed her.

(It never went down very much. It didn’t matter how much she brought home, she would never be free of owing Enna.)

* * *

 

The first time she meets a Lucerni is the month after the Rebellion officially starts, on the day she runs away.

He isn’t much to look at, and she wouldn’t have looked at him at all if she hadn’t ducked behind a refuse pile to avoid the guards she could hear pounding up and down the main street and found the space already occupied.

“Oh? Are they looking for you?” he asks.

Probably. One of the ladies whose purses she’d been eyeing was the mistress of one of the local tribunes who had been throwing their weight around recently. She’d left without doing anything, but the alarm had been raised all the same.

“I don’t think they care who they find,” she says instead.

“Well then,” he says, pointing to some crates at the end of alley. “Let’s make sure they find someone else, shall we?”

“Go right,” Iris advised. That would take them deeper in the alienage- they were unlikely to follow them into the rabbit’s warren of alleyways.

The man nodded, and as he stood Iris could see the ‘F’ branded into his forehead, nearly invisible in the poor lighting beneath the dirt that streaked his face.

“Are you a fugitive?” she asked, as they melted into the crowd of people drawn to the spice market that they had nearby on Saturdays.

“Yes,” he said simply. “Does that matter?”

She hadn’t expected him to just come out and say it, and saying it shocked the truth out of her.

“Take me with you,” she blurted out.

The man stopped, and turned to look at her. Iris was suddenly, acutely aware of how well-dressed she was, compared to him. The clothes were all second-hand, scavenged by the little kids that Enna set to rag picking, from the poorly dyed strip of cloth that she was wearing as a hair ribbon down to her mismatched sandals. But they were also clean clothes, and she’d washed her face this morning, and had a bath not three days before. The man is dirty, and his clothes were the raggiest of rags beneath the dirt.

“Do you have something to run from?” he asked.

“Enna,” Iris replied.

“Is Enna your owner?”

 _That_ makes her think, because Enna has always said that Iris owed her, not that Iris was owned, but that’s not how she acts. “She thinks she is.”

He smiled at her: wide and sharp and conspiratorial. “Then we’ll sort the details out once we’re out of the city.”

* * *

 

His name is Yenko, and never in her life has Iris met anyone like him. He’s old, for one thing: really old, older than Enna, or so he looks.

(He’s not really older, she learns: he’s about forty, or maybe a few years old, he just shows it all.)

He’s done so much: he worked in the quarries, he’s worked in the fields, and he’s worked in workhouses; he’s been a groundskeeper and a huntsmaster and even, very briefly, a tracker on Seheron. And he’s run away from all of those things. He knows every trick in the book- he wrote half the tricks in the book- and somehow he’s not daunted by the way that he’s still here.

(He teaches her his tricks too, once they’re out of the city and Iris has to live in the countryside for the first time in her life: how to set traps for small game and fishes, how to find shelter in the woods and build a fire out of dried grass and twigs.)

Yenko is _alive_. He’s _lived_ , more than anyone Iris has ever known, and he’s lived for _himself_.

(Almost everything about who Iris is, is down to Enna. She can steal, because Enna wanted her to, use a blade, because Enna wanted her to. She dresses how Enna wanted her to, behaves how Enna wanted her to… the only she has that’s her own is her stories about her parents.)

“This is the eleventh time I’ve run away,” he says. “But it’s the first time I’ve rebelled. It’s kind of exciting, isn’t it?”

And he had _rebelled_ , from the workhouse in Minrathous he'd been kept in. They saved sharp little bones from the fertilizer they were grinding, some needle-like to pick the locks on their manacles, some larger spikes for the overseer, when he came into to unchain them from the pillars in the basement.

“I told everyone that we should split up, and not tell anyone where we were headed, but I think just about everyone is heading the same place these days,” Yenko says. It’s true. The Lucerni take everyone, even fugitives and cutpurses. Maybe even _especially_ fugitives and cutpurses. “With a little luck, I’ll see most of them again, when we’re free. How about you- is there anyone you’re looking to meet?”

“I don’t know,” Iris says, because she never had.

(What would she even say, if she ran into them, the woman who didn’t want Iris to see her crying, and the man with her eyes? What would she do, if her parents were real?)

“Do you think you’ll have better luck with staying escaped this time?” Iris asked.

“Who said anything about my luck?” Yenko asked. “I’m counting on yours.”

* * *

 

Her luck doesn’t hold.

(It was never real anyway.)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This portion of the story was posted on the kinkmeme in the period of June 29th- December 1st 2016.
> 
> There are references to rape happening offscreen, largely to original characters. There is also some on-screen torture.

No one said anything about it when they had been woken up and were herded down to the baths, but the rest of Marini’s gladiators gathered around him silently, Dorian right up against his blind side and the rest of them sheltering them as much as they could. He appreciated the gesture, all the more when they reached the baths and he found that the magisters assembled to watch had gotten even rowdier. Pretty much everyone got pulled away at some point before they were herded back out of public view: that Erimond guy from their first day of the games was back and tormenting Dorian, poor Hillarion was in high demand, Crispin had an unusually solemn-looking magister beckon him over, while Mara contended with a tittering group of men and women in military-style robes, and the Bull had Sequnda and her group of friends.   
  
He smiled, let them touch him, acted polite and even flirted a little. They were rich, which meant that they could buy his contract out from Aulus, which would mean more privileges for him and maybe a better chance of getting out of this. He could put up with a lot, for that, though Sequnda was pushing that a little. It wasn’t anything specific that she did, even: he knew what the magisters and their kind acted like, and how to handle it. There was just something about her that was a little off, and it kind of creeped him out.  
  
“Everyone alright?” Mara asked once they were safely out of the magisters’ sight once more.   
  
“Fine,” Dorian said shortly, before anyone else could. “Plotting the arson of a national monument along with several murders, but still fine.”  
  
Crispin snorted. “How are you going to manage that with the collar on?”  
  
“People have been burning shit down without magic for about as long as they’ve been doing it with magic, I’ll wager. I’m sure I can come up with something.”  
  
There was something oddly soothing about the thought of the Capitoline burning without them being inside it, and they were all quick to latch on to the excuse to cheer up a little.   
  
They returned to their cells, to find Yenko and the other woman had returned. What was not there when they got back was the Bull’s box of chocolates.   
  
“Decimus, ser?” he called, when the man walked passed his cell. Decimus stopped and raised an eyebrow at him. “I had that box of chocolates from yesterday in here, but-”  
  
“It will have gotten cleaned away with the rest of the detritus,” Decimus said dismissively, already turning away.   
  
“But I wasn’t finished with it yet!” the Bull said, which apparently wasn’t even worth a second look.   
  
He slumped back down on the cot, more angry with himself than anything else. That was his best shot at arranging an escape, and he’d hid it under his fucking pillow. He should have asked one of the guards from the ludus to look after it. They might have eaten the chocolates, but they probably would have left him the wrappers.   
  
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Yenko asked, which knocked him right out of his head.   
  
“Yes,” Mara said, matter-of-factly. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Yenko sighed in response.   
  
“Does she have any family?” Dorian asked. “I had the thought that I could write to them…”  
  
Yenko was already shaking his head. “She was a foundling, raised by the Seven Bells. They taught her to steal, and once she was old enough to realize that they didn’t, legally speaking, own her she scarpered. I met her after that, in the middle of an escape of my own.”

Things were quiet after that. Breakfast was handed out, and they ate in silence, until Decimus opened up Dorian’s cell and tossed him his armor.   
  
“Let me guess,” Dorian said tiredly. “Another death match?”  
  
“No, actually,” Decimus replied. “You’re playing executioner today.”  
  
Dorian froze, and stared at him.   
  
“That guard from yesterday? He was found guilty of interference, and the Editore wants him dealt with as harshly as possible.”  
  
“That was quick,” Dorian muttered, as he resumed dressing.   
  
Decimus shrugged. “Marini’s instructions were for you to draw it out- but don’t let him ever think he’s got the upper hand. We don’t want to encourage this sort of behavior.”  
  
“Will he be armed? Armored?”  
  
“He’ll have a loincloth and a stick, same as you did,” said Decimus.   
  
“Will I be waiting for the thumbs down then?” Dorian asked.   
  
“Yes.”  
  
Dorian had finished dressing. He grabbed his staff from the weapons rack and headed down the ramp to the arena.   
  
It took fifteen minutes for the death trumpet to sound. It was the first time the Bull heard the crowd’s cheering drown out the jeers in one of Dorian’s matches.

* * *

 

The rest of the games passed without incident. The Bull fought twice on the sixth day of the games: once a death match, against a woman who fought like she had already decided this was how she wanted to die, and once a regular fight against that Amaryllis woman who was also staying in the antetheater with him. He lost that last one: a stupid footing mistake that left him off balance and made it possible for her to knock him off his feet, but the crowd came out in his favor, even if they were more reluctant about it for him than they had been with Baqoun.  
  
He got called up to the party again that night, but thankfully Sequnda wasn’t there. That group of party-goers was a little less touchy, and didn’t give him the creeps the way she did. They were still touchier than he would have liked, but if it had to happen he preferred it happened to him, who was trained to deal with this kind of thing, than someone like Hillarion or Dorian who would take it personally.  
  
He opened on the seventh day with the last of the pageant games: he, the Fog Warrior, and three others, who apparently comprised the top five fighters of the pageants in this round of games, against everyone else. They won, just barely, and no one died. No one’s barrier even failed- the attendants must have been watching them pretty closely, in the wake of what happened with Marcus.   
  
“If you attempt to pick me up for a ‘victory spin’, I will disembowel you,” the Fog Warrior told him once they were finished, so the Bull settled on pulling the three less recalcitrant gladiators in for a kind of victory square dance, while the Fog Warrior stood there and scowled.   
  
The seventh day was a half day of games, really. After he got back, Yenko had a beast hunt, and Dorian had another death match, and then every single gladiator left breathing went back into the arena for the closing ceremony.   
  
The closing ceremony consisted of them standing there, lined up by their luduses, listening to various important figures speaking in Tevene.  
  
“Yes, yes, you’re invincible, we get it,” Dorian grumbled under his breath. “Now those of us who did not die would like to salute you so we can get out of here.”  
  
Once the speeches and salutes were finally over with, they filed out, one ludus at a time, into the wagons they’d come in. They were chained up and then left in the back as the wagons lurched over the cobblestones. Someone must have complained to the right person about the traffic, because the city guard was out in force, allowing them to make it past the citadel gates in under an hour.   
  
The sun was setting when they finally arrived back at the ludus. Arsinoe and Cy unchained them, and then they were herded through the entrance to the west of Marini’s house into the little courtyard. Lanterns had been strung up across its length between the pillars, and a feast laid out for them, though they weren’t allowed anywhere near it until after they’d bathed.

“Maker, I’ve missed you assholes,” Tavarius said once they’d finally arrived, sounding relieved. He frowned as he noticed Iris was missing. “What happened to-”  
  
“She’s dead,” Dorian said. “Iris is dead.”  
  
“And you’re not,” Tavarius replied.   
  
“I have something the Archon wants, evidentially,” Dorian said, his mouth set into a thin line.   
  
Tavarius shrugged. “Well. We might as well all eat, I guess.”  
  
It was a victory feast, and their usual soup and stew had been tossed aside in favor of chicken tagine, coconut and lentil curry, boiled ostrich, nut tarts, roasted quail, and some kind of thick shellfish bisque garnished with lemon. They made small talk, dancing around Iris and the actual fighting. Crispin spoke about the failed assassination attempt, Dorian complained that he could see the buds on the gingko tree, and Yenko assured Tavarius that he hadn’t missed much at all. The moons had risen before they’d finished, and Marini came down to the courtyard, clapping her hands thrice in order to get their attention.   
  
“Those of you who fought in the games this past week, stand up,” she ordered, adding after a beat. “Not you, Dorian.”  
  
Dorian sat back down as the rest of them lined up at the border between the two courtyards. Marini subjected them to a short speech about the honor and prestige they could all achieve in the games (he could see Dorian rolling his eyes from where he was standing; thankfully, Marini either didn’t notice or didn’t care) and then got to the point.   
  
“I am awarding each of the gladiators who distinguished themselves this past week a boon,” Marini announced. “I will even award some of them more than one, for their exemplary performance. Audata, please step forward.”  
  
That was apparently the name of the woman that wasn’t involved with their little faction of gladiators. She wanted permission to cut her hair short. Mara wanted access to one of the weekly advisios that served as a newspaper in Tevinter. Yenko wanted to take his dinner with the house slaves once a week. Crispin got two: he wanted to be able to write to his family, and also to be allowed to shave himself in the morning. Hillarion was also given two: he asked for a mancala board, and the chance to have Dorian write to his mother.  
  
That last one gave Marini pause. “I will be reading any letters sent out,” she told them, which the Bull expected. Hillarion seemed baffled by the idea that he’d be sending anything dangerous to his mother, but said nothing.

Then it was the Bull’s turn. He, apparently, got five boons.   
  
“Uh- wow!” His surprise was genuine, up to a point: he’d really thought he might get three boons, at most. He exaggerated the emotion, though, because it fit with the persona he’d been building. “Uh. Can I have a bigger cot for my cell for when we go back to the Capitoline for the regular games season?”  
  
From the look on her face, she hadn’t even thought about what the cot size might mean for him. “Yes, I’ll arrange it.”  
  
“Thank you. And can I have some horn balm?”  
  
“I hold your horns, Iron Bull,” Marini reminded him, looking amused.   
  
“The stubs are the part that itch, ma’am,” the Bull replied.   
  
“Fair enough. Your third?”  
  
“Can I write letters too? And get them back?”  
  
“I suppose you’ll want Dorian’s hand for that as well?” Marini said with a sigh.   
  
“No, ma’am, I can do that myself,” the Bull replied.   
  
Marini looked taken aback. “You’re just full of surprises. I suppose you’ll want a scrapbook for your fourth boon?”  
  
The Bull had only thought of three things to ask for, and was scrambling for inspiration for the remaining two. A scrapbook sounded just as good as anything. “Sure! I’d love a scrapbook.” Actually, now that he was thinking about it, a scrapbook could be pretty useful: a place to hide Subira’s messages from the casual observer, for one thing. For another, it gave him a readymade excuse to hold on to any wrappers he might be sent. “You’ve been planting a lot of pretty flowers around here, I bet some of them would press well.”  
  
“You want a scrapbook so you can press flowers,” Marini summarized incredulously. Behind her, the Bull could see Dorian’s teeth flash brightly before he hid his smile behind his hand. “Yes. You’re just chocked full of surprises. And for your last request?”  
  
The Bull paused, his eye falling on the gingko tree. It had buds, Dorian had said.  
  
“Can we have the nuts from that gingko tree?” the Bull asked.   
  
“We?” Marini asked.   
  
“Yeah, the gladiators, ma’am," the Bull clarified. "Can we have the nuts from the gingko tree?”  
  
“I suppose it won’t throw off your diet too much,” Marini replied, and then, noting how everyone had perked up at that, added. “I can certainly be magnanimous with your reward.”  
  
The night ended pretty much then and there: the house slaves had assembled while they were getting their boons, and were waiting for them to go so they could collect the leavings of their feast. As they all marched back down into their cells, Dorian brushed against him with a grin.   
  
What that meant, exactly, the Bull couldn’t tell, but it certainly didn’t mean anything bad, so the Bull grinned back at him before they parted ways.

* * *

 

Their first day back dawned early, with Dorian swearing vociferously in Tevene as the sound of gravel pouring in through his window echoed around their cellblock.   
  
“ _Venhedis kaffan vas_ , Marcus!” That was the stonemason again. “What are you doing?”  
  
“I’m not doing it on purpose!”  
  
“Don’t do it at all, you sister-fucking son of blighted hyena!” Dorian snapped.   
  
There was the sound of footsteps from the hall, and woman’s voice called out “What’s all this, then?”  
  
“Another gravel mishap,” the Bull answered, before Dorian could threaten to shit on her tongue or whatever. “Sorry. I should have warned the others about that.”  
  
There was a slapping sound from Dorian’s cell. He hadn’t heard the door open, so it was probably just Dorian smacking himself in the face in frustration, instead of the guard smacking him in the face in frustration.  
  
The woman grunted. “I thought I told you to keep a closer eye on your apprentices?”  
  
“It won’t happen again,” the stonemason promised.   
  
“It better not, or I’ll go straight to Marini,” the guard threatened.   
  
The sun was properly up by the time they were let out of their cells, Dorian covered in stone dust and scowling fiercely. He cheered up a bit after he was able to dunk his head under the water of the frigidarium, though.  
  
They had their run, their breakfast, their morning drills and their lunch, same as usual. The Bull had been looking forward to seeing if they would go back to having sparring practice in the afternoon, or if they would continue to help shift material for the ongoing renovations: it turned out to be neither for him that day. As lunch was just ending, some of the guards brought him, Dorian, Hillarion, and Crispin up to the house to write their letters.   
  
Crispin kept his letter short and to the point: he was done within half an hour, sprinkling his letter with pumice sand to dry the ink before handing it off to the guards watching them. Dorian and Hillarion took much longer.   
  
“I’ve never actually done this before,” Dorian said. “Do I introduce myself, or do I just write what you dictate?”  
  
“Generally, you just write what I say, but, I’ve never had an Altus writing my letter before,” Hillarion replied. “Mam might find that interesting.”  
  
“Technically, you still don’t have an Altus writing for you,” Dorian told him. “The rank went with everything else.”  
  
There was a beat before Hillarion shrugged. “It’s still a lot closer than I’ve ever gotten before.”  
  
“So, I’ll introduce myself then,” Dorian said. “What do you want to say?”  
  
They worked out the details while the Bull wrote. He had a lot of letters to write, more than he really wanted to write. He wanted to write to Krem, which necessitated also writing to Krem’s mother, and he wanted to write to Subira, which was particularly tricky.   
  
He knew the cover he was using: he would be writing to thank her for her gift of chocolates. But in order to make sure that the letter didn’t stand out as irregular, he would have to write thank-you notes to everyone from outside the ludus who’d shown an interest in him. That meant writing to his patron, Aulus, and, as much as he hated the idea, Sequnda. She was rich, and an Altus: it would be expected that he’d want to trade Aulus’ patronage in for hers, even if the thought of seeing her again made his skin crawl.

“What’s taking you so long?” snapped one of the guards. He was the short, hairy one from the arena, whose name the Bull hadn’t caught yet.   
  
“I’ve got two more letters to write,” the Bull replied, though it was really more like two-and-a-half.  
  
“We’ve just now completed the rough outline for the thing,” Dorian said.   
  
The guard stalked over to Dorian and Hillarion, scowling down at the paper. “This is what you want to say?”  
  
“Yes,” Hillarion began warily. Whatever else he was going to say was lost, as the guard replied.  
  
“Good! Then you’re done here, let’s go.”  
  
He and Hillarion left together, leaving the Bull and Dorian alone with the guards posted at the door.   
  
“You know, this doesn’t happen in other nations,” Dorian said, after a moment of silence.   
  
“Oh yeah?” the Bull replied, letting his eye rove all over the room in an obvious way. They were in a nice room, nicer than any the Bull had been allowed into lately. The table was made of some kind of expensive and highly polished hardwood, the floor was covered in an intricate mosaic, and the molding was craved to resemble a snake eat its own tail. “And here I thought this all looked Antivan.”  
  
Dorian huffed and rolled his eyes. He was holding his pen in his right hand, the Bull realized abruptly- a strange thing for someone who was left-handed to do. He ate with his right hand too, but he knew that was some kind ‘Vint manners thing.   
  
“I meant the writing,” Dorian explained. “In almost every other nation, some form of basic literacy is expected of those with citizenship. They might be a bit murky about spelling, or reading material that isn’t their version of the Chant, but they do know. They’re taught. Nomadic tribesmen in the Anderfels know how to read and write. Clans of feral elves wandering around Thedas in their landships know how to read and write. Beggars in Kirkwall know how to read and write. Mages who have never known anything but the Circles they’re imprisoned in know how to read and write. Elves scrapping out an existence in Orlesian alienages know how to read and write. Fereldan peasants who farm dog shit or whatever it is that Fereldan peasants do, they know how to read and write. With the reforms King Bhelen has passed, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the casteless dwarves in Orzammar were learning to read and write as a matter of course as well. And here we are, in Tevinter, where we don’t even insure that our soldiers can write home to their mothers.” His lip curled into that now familiar sneer. “It’s a disgrace.”  
  
Yeah, it was. Somehow, though, he wasn’t sure that Dorian was looking for a blind agreement, so much as something else he could push against.  
  
“You didn’t mention the Qun,” the Bull pointed out instead.   
  
Dorian shrugged. “Propaganda was a little thin on the subject of Qunari education systems, unless it was to imply that there were none. You don’t teach your mages to read, I suppose?”  
  
“Yeah, we do,” the Bull explained. “Magic shows up late in childhood for Qunari the same as everyone else, so saarebas get the same education as everyone else up to that point: literacy starts being taught around the age of five.”  
  
“My magic manifested when I was five,” Dorian told him.   
  
“Oh,” the Bull said. “I don’t know what happens then.”  
  
Conversation died. Dorian went back to writing to Hillarion’s mother, and the Bull worked on phrasing his letter to Subira is just the right way. It ended up being a short note, which worked out well. It meant that it wouldn’t stand out next to his short thank-you notes to Aulus and Sequnda.

They finished at about the same time, handed their letters over to the guard for review, and were escorted back to the courtyard.   
  
From the looks of things, the gladiators had been helping out with renovations, and then a large amount of mosaic tiles had been dropped: construction material was still being moved into the estate by the workmen, but the gladiators crouched down, sorting through the tiles.   
  
“We’re arranging them by color,” Yenko explained. “Stack up the whole ones, just pile the broken ones up in the center.”  
  
Crispin looked between the two of them, confused. “What happened to Hillarion?”  
  
“He was sent out before us,” Dorian replied. “It must have been almost half an hour ago, now.”  
  
It took another five minutes or so for Hillarion to emerge, escorted by the same guard who had insisted that he leave early. He didn’t look so good: he was walking with his shoulders hunched, his face downturned and flushed red up to his ears. The guard, meanwhile, looked like he’d been having a wonderful time.   
  
“Is he allowed to do that?” Dorian asked in a strangled tone of voice. “Isn’t he supposed to ask Marini’s permission or something first?”  
  
“What are you going to do, call the guards?” Yenko asked.   
  
Hillarion arrived at that point, collapsing between the Bull and Crispin with a huff.   
  
“Decimus was upset over that magister from the fifth day of the games,” Dorian said carefully, half in answer to Yenko, half as an offer to Hillarion. “And he hates me. He might intervene.”  
  
“I’m not sure ‘injuries you shouldn’t have’ applies if we’re not in the middle of the games,” Hillarion said.   
  
Dorian opened his mouth to argue, but Hillarion cut him off.   
  
“Just leave it. I don’t want this to become a thing, I don’t want- leave it,” he said. “Thank you, but let it be, please?”  
  
“Very well,” Dorian said, though it was obvious he wanted to do anything but.   
  
They spent the rest of the day sorting through the mosaic tiles, some of the house slaves bringing out torches to light the ground for them when the sun came down. The moons had risen before they were allowed to eat dinner, and they went back to their cells immediately after.   
  
“Don’t forget to move your beds away from the window,” the Bull reminded them.

* * *

 

Things fell into a new pattern over the next couple of days. Wake up. Cold water bath. Running. Breakfast. Drilling. Lunch. Help moving things around for renovations. Hot water bath. Massage. Shower. Dinner, and punishments, if anyone (mainly Dorian) had earned any. Bed.  
  
There weren’t any new sponsors coming in, it seemed. Speaking about it over dinner, the gladiators arrived at the agreement that Marini was waiting until renovations were finished before she began pimping them out again.   
  
“I guess we must be almost done with them, then,” said Audata, who wasn’t eating with them, exactly, but wasn’t ignoring them anymore either. “She won’t want to let the buzz surrounding your sweep of the pageants to die down.”  
  
Things were being finished quickly. In the space of a day, the veranda on the back of the house was expanded and a gazebo had been constructed out in the main garden. They spent one afternoon shifting plants around; by the time they’d finished with lunch the following day they’d all been planted. They could hear the workmen still hammering away when they went down into their cells at night, and it was obvious, even without the gravel risk, that they were up and working before they were.   
  
He didn’t see much of the regular house slaves, which surprised him at first. Then Yenko had his first dinner with them, and came back with the news that Marini had rented most of them out.   
  
“One of the local Magisters is planting a lot of red wheat on their land, and was willing to pay double the regular rates for field hands, or so they’re saying,” he told them. “They won’t be back until another fortnight, at least.”  
  
The Bull kept a close eye on the remaining slaves, especially when it came to their interactions with the guards. They had their usual bunch watching over them as the lanista directed them in their work, but the guards apparently all lived in apartments set into the eastern wall just behind the house. He saw the bunch from the antetheater too, and ones he’d never seen before. He overheard some their conversations sometimes, when they were speaking loudly enough for their voices to carry over to where he was working.  
  
That was how he learned that Decimus was in charge of all the guards, not just those who’d accompanied them to the antetheater, and that the guy who ran the bunch that normally watched over the gladiators while they were training, Septimus, was supposed to have gotten that job when the last guard captain had resigned. The short hairy guard was called Valentine, and the house slaves avoided him like the blight, some going so far as to walk across to western part of the courtyard before heading into the house to avoid him. Arsinoe and Phyllis were sleeping together: the gossip was that they had something called a ‘Seheron marriage’ going on, and they’d either mastered the afternoon quickie or Phyllis had made Arsinoe come so hard he could still smell it on her in the afternoon when she had a smoke right by where he was putting down cobblestones. Either way the Bull was kind of impressed, not in the least because he wasn’t exactly having sex these days, so much as he was letting sex happen to him.   
  
The next thing that finished was the construction by their cells: Marini had had three new cell blocks created, doubling her capacity for gladiators. People got shuffled around a bit, but their group remained in the same cell block, which struck the Bull as odd, though he wasn’t going to physically question the good luck to be staying nearby Dorian and the others.   
  
No sooner were the cells completed than people began arriving- new slaves. Most of them seemed to be house slaves, but there were always at least two new gladiators in every new bunch, almost entirely Lucerni who were pumped for news the moment they were left in relative privacy.

One morning they woke up and discovered that their lanista had been replaced with a new guy, who was more experienced at running a successful ludus, or so rumor had it. He was also a mage, which would have been terrifying enough if he hadn’t had a sadistic streak no one seemed willing to reign in: his favorite trick was to conjure up some lightning and shock one of them until their bladder released. Then, once they were on the ground and moaning in pain, he’d grind their face into the mud with his boot.   
  
“What a charming, well-bred man our new lanista is,” Dorian grumbled under his breath as he checked behind the Bull’s ears to make sure he hadn’t missed any mud before they left the caldarium.   
  
He hung around while the Bull applied the horn balm that had been given to him the day before. They ended up being one of the last ones out of the bathhouse, and by the time they emerged Crispin was waiting for them, already finished with his massage and dressed.  
  
“How long has Rilienus been here?” he asked Dorian, looking spooked.   
  
“He came with that last bunch before the games began,” Dorian replied, after a quick check to make sure that there weren’t any guards nearby or paying them any particular attention. There weren’t any, just the two posted near the exit back into the courtyard with the gingko tree who were more interested in their own conversation than anything else. “You… didn’t overhear us speaking about him? In the antetheater?”  
  
“I did, I just thought- I don’t know what I thought,” Crispin admitted. “That you’d be more upset, maybe.”  
  
“Crispin, if I start being upset now I’ll become completely useless for the rest of my life,” Dorian replied with a strained smile. “Which would a very short period of time indeed if I suddenly became incapable of doing anything more than curling up into a ball and moaning.”  
  
“I would not wish Dorian to come to any more harm than he already has to endure,” Rilienus agreed placidly from behind Crispin.   
  
There was a pause, and the Dorian blurted out. “We were fighting. I don’t know if you recall, but. We’d more or less broken up. The closest thing we could manage to civil conversation with one another was glaring at each other over the tops of the Livias’ heads.”  
  
“I remember,” Rilienus replied. “And I would still not wish you to come to so much harm, even if I would have experienced some short-term relief upon hearing of your exile to the Fereldan Hinterlands.”  
  
That startled a laugh out of Dorian. The guards looked up briefly, but thankfully none of them felt like making anything of it.   
  
“The stones are heated, but will not remain hot enough for much longer,” Rilienus pointed out.   
  
“Well then. Time for a massage,” Dorian agreed, still grinning, and followed him into the parlor.

* * *

 

The new lanista threw a wrench into the whole ludus. Before this, the rules might have been hard to follow all the time, but it was also obvious when they’d been broken, and what was going to happen as a result. There had been a predictability to the violence, an almost stability.   
  
That was gone now. Kedronus lashed out whenever he wanted, however he wanted, for whatever reason he wanted, if he even bothered giving a reason at all. Oftentimes, he didn’t. Worse, some of the guards took that as their cue to lay into them at will, and Kedronus did absolutely nothing to stop them.   
  
It was quickly becoming obvious that the guards were picking favorites too- or unfavorites. They went after the Bull, because he was Qunari and they’d all been raised to hate the oxmen. They went after Hillarion because he was young, pretty, and as unblemished as any of them could be. They went after Yenko because picking on an old elven slave was familiar. They went after Dorian, because they considered an Altus who joined the Lucerni to be the worst sort of traitor, and he was the only one in the ludus.   
  
It set everyone on edge, whether they were taking the brunt of the guards’ issues or not. Gossip, speculation and rumors ran rampant during the evenings, even as everyone kept their heads down and spoke only to their cellmates during meals. The Lucerni were on the verge of unconditional surrender. The Lucerni had broken the Imperium’s offensive against Nessum and were advancing north again. The Imperium was potentially going to free some of them as part of an exchange of prisoners with the Lucerni. The Magisterium had preemptively approved of recompense for any ludus owner whose gladiators rebelled and had to undergo the Pyrrhic Rite.   
  
“The what now?” the Bull asked.   
  
“It’s a method of forestalling rebellion. Essentially all the gladiators in a ludus are armed, armored, and then deposited in the arena, and forced to fight one another until there’s only one left standing,” Dorian explained. “It hasn’t been done in- I don’t know. An age, at least.”  
  
“Try about thirty, thirty-five years ago,” Yenko said. “It was about a year after the Eighteenth Servile War ended. There were a lot of former rebels fighting, and a lot of fear that they’d kick the whole thing off again, so when one ludus’ gladiators tried to kill their owner, they were made an example of. I was about ten when that happened, I think. It was all anyone could speak of for months.”  
  
“ _Vishante kaffas_ ,” Dorian swore.   
  
“What?” Yenko asked.   
  
“It’s just occurred to me that they’re going to call this the Nineteenth Servile War,” Dorian replied. “And that there will almost certainly be a twentieth.”  
  
Yenko’s eyes darted, checking that no guards were nearby, before he replied. “May they have better luck than we did.”

Slaves were still arriving three or more times a week. They now had three men named Marcus in their ludus, one named Marcellus who was used to answering to Marc, and one named Markus with a k, who was from the Anderfells and drew ire by responding to orders by making the Andrastean sundisc sign and muttering in Orth, none of which was confusing at all. All of the new arrivals eventually settled into other groups for meals, and none of them were put into their cellblock, which remained half empty even as others were filled to capacity.  
  
That changed a good fortnight after the victory games had ended, a hot day with humidity clinging to his horns and the fabric of his pants without a cloud in sight. They were shifting material to the house which was getting some kind of addition- Tavarius swore that they were building another bathhouse, while Yenko had heard that it was going to be a seraglio, and he kind of hoped the human had it right- when the new arrivals came in.   
  
There was a qunari woman among them, her horns gone- the left one looked like it had been snapped off, the remaining stub rough and jagged looking, while the right one had been more carefully and evenly sawn through, like his had been. Her tongue was gone too, as they found out when she came to sit down next to him.   
  
Vola Panahasi, she’d written in the dirt: a given name and the name of either her kith or her oppidium, which he gathered from context was the Tevene term for a Vashoth settlement. She couldn’t clarify which it was. One the guards- he thought the guy’s name was Learchus- had brought his truncheon down on her elbow when he saw her writing, and according to Yenko he’d never heard of there being a separate sign for the two.   
  
“She was a bodyguard before this,” Yenko translated for her. “For a magister from Minrathous. Uh.”  
  
Vola repeated her gestures.   
  
“Magister Denarii-weight-of-blood?” Yenko translated.   
  
“…Magister Danarius?” Mara suggested.   
  
Vola nodded. Dorian choked on his stew. Hillarion dropped his bread. Crispin swore. Tavarius gaped.   
  
“Oh,” said Yenko.

“So, I take it that guy is bad news?” the Bull asked, pounding Dorian on the back. The name rang a bell, but he couldn’t be a face to it, or any other details.  
  
“You could say that,” Hillarion said, sounding strained.   
  
“He’s a monster,” Tavarius hissed. “But he was chummy with all of the Legates and was a senior member of the Magisterium’s Committee of Warfare, so there was nothing we could do about it.”  
  
“Whenever he came to Seheron he’d ask for a cadre of extra bodyguards to be formed out of the rank and file for him,” Mara explained. “They never came back. We all knew they weren’t coming back, and we all knew why, but what were we going to do about it? Mutiny?” She smiled bitterly. “That never works.”  
  
“He’s a notorious maleficar,” Dorian said once his airway was clear again, completing the picture for him. “And a terrifyingly powerful one too. No one quite knows what he could do, given sufficient blood and motivation, to say nothing of how many political pies he has his fingers in, which only means that assassination plots tend to fall apart before they can be enacted.”  
  
Vola signed something: “The assassins she fought off seemed like amateurs,” Yenko translated.   
  
“I don’t doubt it,” Crispin said. He paused before adding, with a side-long look towards Dorian, “Around the time I was captured, there was a rumor going around that we might..?”  
  
Dorian was already shaking his head. “It was deemed too risky. If we took him out ahead of time, it would only serve to place everyone on high alert, and if we tried to take him out with the Archon and his apprentices, then we would almost certainly fail to kill them, even if we managed to kill  _him_. We waited until he left the Imperium.” He turned to Vola, frowning slightly. “He’d gone south, to the Marches, chasing after a predecessor of yours that had escaped some years prior, or so the story went.”  
  
Vola signed. Yenko’s shoulders slumped with relief as he translated. “He’s dead. That other bodyguard got him, or his apprentice reported when she returned. Vola ran away after that.”  
  
“Thank the Maker,” Hillarion croaked, reaching for his remaining wine like it had enough alcohol in it to get drunk on.   
  
“He was a big patron of the games,” Crispin reported. “A very active sponsor, and even ran a few special Provings.”  
  
“That’s how he got the bodyguard that ended up killing him,” Yenko translated, before adding. “Well, at least none of us will have to deal with that, once Marini starts courting sponsors again.”  
  
“I’ll drink to that,” Dorian said, lifting his glass.   
  
“Did you ever meet him?” Mara asked.   
  
“Once. He and my father are- were- mortal enemies, so they were forever being invited to the same parties,” Dorian replied, like that was a sentence that made sense. “It was years ago, when I was perhaps fifteen. I was trapped into making polite conversation with him for several minutes. It would have made me want to take a long hot bath, had it not been the steam room of the bathhouse where this took place.”  
  
Vola cocked her head.   
  
“Dorian of House Pavus,” Yenko explained for her, causing recognition to light up her eyes.   
  
“You’ve probably met my father, haven’t you?” Dorian asked.   
  
“He seemed decent, for a magister,” Yenko translated.   
  
“Yes, I rather imagine he did,” Dorian replied. “It’s a public face he’s quite proud of.”  
  
Conversation stopped for a beat, and then two, and then Yenko began explaining the bathhouse vs seraglio argument to Vola, with frequent interruptions from Tavarius.   
  
Vola was assigned to their cellblock, to the cell all the way at the far end next to the Bull’s, one of the two that were slightly bigger than any of the others. Her position in their group was cemented from that point on.

* * *

 

Three days later, it turned out that both Tavarius and Yenko were right: the first two floors were a bathhouse, to entertain Marini’s guests, while the top floor was a seraglio, to hold… well.  _Concubine_  was the word people kept using, so the Bull stuck with that.   
  
“Some of the house slaves are trying to scrub up their daughters a bit, in case she decides to pluck her concubines up from her current property, instead of buying them special,” Yenko explained.   
  
“ _Fasta vass_ , why would they do that?” Crispin asked, horrified.   
  
Yenko shrugged. “Better food, for one thing- possibly for the whole family, if she lets them walk the grounds sometimes. The others don’t eat as well as we do, you know. If Marini takes a liking to her, then she could grant boons, or even just listen to her suggestions. She might be able to get one of her siblings into a trade, or even the ludus, and give them a better shot at being freed- and employed.”  
  
“Andraste, what a choice to make,” Dorian said, looking ill.   
  
Yenko shrugged again. “We all have to work with what we’re given.”  
  
Construction seemed like it was almost finished. The crew that had dumped gravel into their windows was gone, replaced by smaller groups of specialists, replacing curtains, creating mosaics, and something involving spellbinding the Bull hoped he wouldn’t need to interact with. They’d gone back to sparring in the afternoons, so he just caught sight of people go back and forth across the courtyard as they passed through his peripheral vision.   
  
“What do you even need demons for? Do they scare the other magisters or something?” the Bull asked.   
  
“There are a lot of things people use bound spirits for,” Crispin began.   
  
“They’re expensive,” Dorian said suddenly.   
  
Dorian had taken to sitting right next to the Bull during meals, often huddled against the Bull’s side as he waited for his body to burn off enough energy to stop shaking. Magical healing did a lot: it flushed out the old blood from bruises along with the swelling, snapping broken bones and loose teeth back into place, stopped lashing from causing scars, even if everyone’s back was a crosshatching of new and tanned skin at this point. But it didn’t seem to be able to do anything about the way people got keyed up when they were trapped and under attack.   
  
Yenko was able to shrug it off, mostly. Hillarion hugged himself and snarled and snapped at anyone who tried comforting him, even Mara, who he normally adored. Dorian shook, sometimes with residual fear or relief that it was over, other times in anger. The Bull could hear his teeth grinding together when it was anger.   
  
The Bull always kind of felt like wrapping an arm around him, but the guards wouldn’t stand for it and he wasn’t sure it would help on those days when he was just about ready to vibrate either. He settled for hooking his ankle around Dorian’s under the table and waiting for the guy to speak so he could pretend he had some privacy to stop shaking in if he wanted.   
  
Most of the time, Dorian stayed silent until he’d steadied. That wasn’t today.   
  
“Well, yeah. Expensive is probably the message Marini’s trying to send,” Crispin said.   
  
“No. I mean, you’re probably right, but that’s not what I meant,” Dorian corrected. “I mean that the ludus was sparsely populated when the Lucerni started arriving here. The estate grounds were in a state of barely contained disrepair, and from what Yenko has said, most of her staff are foreign born two-for-a-gold black market wares. She was  _broke_ , she can’t have made enough money to cover the cost of all of this already.”

There was a pause, as everyone checked to see if the guards were going to do anything. If they’d heard, they didn’t seem to object.   
  
“So you think she’s in debt?” Mara asked.   
  
“Or possibly is a gambler?” Tavarius added.   
  
Dorian nodded.   
  
“Well. That’s not good,” the Bull said, because that seemed to be what everyone else thought.   
  
“It’s also not the only the explanation,” Crispin said. “We could have killed a rich, issueless uncle of hers down south, causing her to inherit all his wealth.”  
  
“The Archon could be paying her to keep you,” Hillarion added, which seemed slightly more likely.   
  
“Don’t think about it,” Yenko advised.   
  
“Don’t think about it?” Dorian repeated incredulously. “Yenko- you have to know what it means, if she’s spending money she doesn’t have.”  
  
“It means that she’s more likely to go bankrupt. And if she goes bankrupt, we’ll all be sold off to separate luduses to cover the debt, and probably have to face one another in the arena,” Yenko said.   
  
Ah. Right. It didn’t even have to be bankruptcy. Someone could decide that they wanted one of them, and make her an offer she didn’t want to refuse. Any of them could be sold away. That was something that could happen, which he kept trying not to think about.  
  
“Look, none of you were born into slavery. I was,” Yenko said. “If you think about every little thing that can happen to you, you’ll go mad. It will eat you alive from the inside out. Think about which of the guards hates your guts and which might give you an inch, think about what boons you’re going to get when you fight and who you want to sponsor you, think about whatever you need to in order to get to the end of the day. But when it comes to anything that isn’t hovering directly over your head, take it from me: don’t.”  
  
“Then when should we worry, pray tell?” Dorian sniped.   
  
“When the slave traders start coming to size us all up,” Yenko told him, adding after a pause. “Incidentally, ‘while being transported’ is a really good time to escape. I managed to get all the way to Nevarra during that try.”  
  
There was a long pause.   
  
“Fine, I’ll ask,” Hillarion said finally. “If you managed to get to Nevarra, why are you still here?”  
  
Vola returned from the healers’ ward at that point, her gaze pointedly downcast and her back pointedly straight, pointedly ignoring the young guard who was eyeing her up. She would have been fine either way, probably. That guy- he was pretty sure he was named Amasis Manetho, or maybe Manetho Amasis- looked a lot, but he hadn’t touched anyone that the Bull could see. Vola was still new enough that he couldn’t be sure, but he kind of got the impression that ‘pointedly’ was how she dealt with things. That was useful, probably.

She sat down and had a short exchange with Yenko. He’d tried mimicking their signs under the table, at first, but it quickly became obvious that the missing fingers made that impossible. Good thing he was able to keep the tongue then.  
  
That, and he still wasn’t sure how Vola was managing to eat. Careful chewing seemed to be involved, and a bit of choking they were all getting used to hearing.   
  
“Yenko was just explaining why he’s still here if he managed to escape to Nevarra,” Dorian said, which was probably what they’d been signing about anyway.  
  
“It’s not that exciting a story, really,” Yenko said aloud. “I was working in a tavern close to the border- which was a mistake- and the slave hunters came in and showed a sketch of me around, said that I’d stolen from my master. That was that.”  
  
“They just gave you up? Just like that?” Dorian asked incredulously.   
  
“It was their word against a knife-ear’s, so,” Yenko said with a shrug. “The rest of you might have a better chance. Well. Maybe not you two,” he added, indicating Vola and the Bull.   
  
“I doubt they’d be very keen on letting me go either,” Dorian remarked. “Too high profile.”  
  
“Well, not in Tevinter, they wouldn’t. But if you made it across the border, the other humans might not be so quick to give you up,” Yenko pointed out.   
  
Dorian opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Then he and everyone else at the table tensed and waited to see if the touchy guard walking their way was going to pick on any of them.   
  
He wasn’t. Someone else, seated at another table, was unlucky this time.   
  
“So, Mara,” Tavarius said after a moment. “Anything interesting in your advisio?”  
  
“Oh, you know:  _ceterum autem censeo Qunandar esse delendam_ ,” Mara replied. Literally, that meant ‘moreover, I think that Qunandar must be destroyed’. In reality, it meant ‘same shit, different day’, and that it was pretentious shit too. “Apparently, the expansion of the list of people who are eligible to become Annonani was stalled in the quorum session. That could mean that the Lucerni are still holding enough territory to disrupt the grain supply.”  
  
“Or it could mean this drought it more widespread than it was last year,” Crispin said.   
  
Conversation quickly turned to trying to decipher the news that the government allowed to be put in print. Next to him, Dorian stopped shaking, and left his ankle hooked under the Bull’s.

* * *

 

The next day was pretty normal until dinner, in the way that normal had come to mean. One of the guards cornered Hillarion as they left the frigidarium, though whatever he’d done it was over quickly and left Hillarion in good enough shape to jog and catch them up. Just before lunch, another pair of guards had Yenko help them put the weapons away, taking a great deal of pleasure in making him reorder the swords and knocking over the arrow quivers until the lanista lost patience with them. He put an end to it with a cuff behind the ears for Yenko and a verbal dressing down for the guards. While they were sparring, the lanista called everyone to a halt. Rather than freezing with one foot of the ground and his sword mid-swing, Tavarius shifted into a more stable position. Five lashes was the usual punishment for that, but it seemed to work the lanista up into a temper, so who the fuck even knew what would happen once dinner had been served?  
  
That temper tantrum lasted until the end of the day when the lanista left, and probably for some time afterwards. Mara, he declared, was old and enfeebled and wouldn’t last ten seconds in a real fight if she were incapable of standing perfectly still as he shot lightning beyond her. Hillarion was young and soft he might as well get thrown to the guards now, seeing as he had fumbled picking up his sword and would clearly be of no use in the arena. Vola caught the worst of it: the lanista didn’t even bother calling another halt before enveloping her in lightning for no fucking reason at all. When he finished with her and found them all standing there, watching him warily, he got even angrier.   
  
He expressed that anger by taking one of the practice swords off of its rack and swinging it at the Bull, again and again, shouting incoherently. The blade had been dulled, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t do damage if it hit; if he actively tried to fight Kedronus that would only make things worse, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t evade.   
  
Well. That didn’t mean he couldn’t evade the sword. Magic was another weapon entirely.   
  
Kedronus was still angry when he finally stepped off of him. He veered back to Vola. The Bull could see, once he’d pushed himself up a bit and wiped the mud away from his good eye, that she was standing, Mara and Hillarion on either side of her, clearly having helped her up.   
  
Off to the side, Dorian was trying to creep towards the Bull without the lanista noticing him. He wasn’t very successful.   
  
“If you take one more step,” Kedronus yelled, rounding on him. “One more fucking step, I will make your life a misery!”  
  
“If I don’t take another step, will you  _not_  make my life a misery?” Dorian asked, though he’d stopped moving.   
  
Unsurprisingly, Dorian didn’t end up having such a great day either. And that was what normal was now, more or less.

Normal stopped when Decimus arrived in the smaller courtyard towards the end of dinner. Everyone’s dinner had been dished up by then: Hillarion was guarding Tavarius’ food, while the Bull took care of Dorian’s, a habit they’d started up because Iris used to steal everyone’s food otherwise. Tavarius had gotten twelve lashes, been cut down and sent to the healers, and was walking back to the table when he spotted Decimus walking towards their table and slowed down. They’d finished with Dorian too, but had left him strung up to stew, and Decimus shot him a dirty look when he passed him.   
  
“You’re wanted up at the house, Iron Bull,” Decimus told them.   
  
The Bull nodded agreeably and pushed the food over toward Mara, who took them with a nod of her own.   
  
“Let’s go then,” he said, standing up.   
  
They passed Dorian again on their way out. His hands were bound together and looped over one of the hooks that jutted out from the inside of the courtyard wall. His feet were bound to an anvil. It was heavy enough to keeping him from moving as he thrashed, but not heavy enough, apparently, to keep Decimus from pushing until it had cleared the ground, causing Dorian to have to support his full weight and the anvil’s with his arms.   
  
Dorian let out a scream around the leather strap he had stuffed between his teeth. Decimus didn’t even bother waiting for the anvil to touch the ground again before he continued on.   
  
The Bull followed. He had to. Just like he had to keep from showing any sign of anger or disgust. Just like he would have to do whatever it was that Marini wanted him to do.   
  
He hated this, he really fucking- Decimus lead them through the doors to the house, and the Bull put it all aside. He could hate later, once he was out of Marini’s sight.   
  
Marini was busy, when they entered what was probably her main office. By ‘busy’, he meant that she was kissing a young woman who was dressed in silk. The Bull thought he recognized her, once Marini had pulled away, as one of the slaves he’d seen crossing the courtyard on their way to the house.   
  
He wondered what was the point of having him watch that. He doubted this was an accident.  
  
“Go to seraglio and wait for me there,” Marini said.   
  
 _That was fast,_  the Bull thought, and then set it aside for later.  
  
Marini dismissed Decimus with a wave, leaving the Bull alone with her and two of her personal guards.

“You’ve received your first reply, Iron Bull,” Marini said. “It’s from Subira, the chocolate seller. She’s sent you both a letter, and another box of chocolates.”  
  
“Really?” the Bull asked, pleasantly surprised. He hadn’t expected good news. “Nice.”  
  
“I’ve also acquired a scrapbook for you. I’ve taken the liberty of adding a quill and inkpot in with the rest of your boon,” Marini continued, pointing to the small basket on her desk, which was apparently for him.  
  
Well, now that was just suspicious. He was still deciding what he should say when she added “It’s more than you asked for, but you’ll pay me back for it, I think.”  
  
It was a bribe, then, though he still wasn’t sure for what. “Thank you, ma’am.”  
  
“You’re very welcome, Iron Bull,” she said, indicating that he should pick the basket up.   
  
He did, and waited to see what she would do next.   
  
“You know, Subira is a very well-known figure in the Capitoline. Not respectable, maybe, but much loved by the public all the same,” Marini mused aloud. “I can remember visiting her stall as a young girl. When she dies, it wouldn’t surprise me if some Publicar built their campaign on throwing a Proving to honor her memory. She doesn’t often show favor to gladiators, but when she does they are generally destined for greatness.”  
  
“Do the chocolates count as showing favor?” the Bull asked.   
  
“They do when they’re given freely,” Marini said. “It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that she was angling for some kind of endorsement. You did uncommonly well in your first games. To have your name associated with her product would only increase the demand.”  
  
“Do you think she might sponsor me?” the Bull asked. Now  _that_  had potential, as far as opening up lines of communications went.   
  
But Marini was already shaking her head. “She doesn’t have the funds, unfortunately. But it’s possible that she might approach us with an offer to become a subcontractor, and I will be advising whoever your sponsor is at the time to accept. It can only do you good, to be associated with her.”  
  
“I’m glad to hear that, ma’am.” There was still a good chance that he might be able to get something out that way. Probably the chocolate wrappers held the instructions he would need to get a message out in his next thank-you note. “I really like chocolates.”  
  
“Who doesn’t?” Marini asked rhetorically. “I myself have ordered several chocolates to be brought in for the formal début of my ludus tomorrow.”  
  
“Tomorrow? Ma’am?” That was the first he’d heard of it. It had to be a new announcement, too, otherwise the house slaves would have known, and warned Yenko.   
  
“Yes, now that the place is in tolerably good repair again,” Marini said. “It’s been nearly a month, since the ludii victoria ended. It wouldn’t do to let the memory of the fight- in particular your performance- degrade any further.”  
  
She was being really, really suspiciously flattering. “Can I tell the others about it, ma’am?”  
  
“Of course,” Marini replied, beaming a little. “And you must tell me about any problems that might arise.”

He realized two things in that moment. First of all, that she wanted him to spy on the others for him. Secondly, that this was the first real chance of doing something about the lanista he’d been given.   
  
“There is something that might be a problem, ma’am,” he said.   
  
“Oh?”  
  
“It’s the new lanista, ma’am.”  
  
Marini frowned: obviously, that wasn’t the sort of answer she’d been hoping to get.   
  
“He’s… not very good at keeping discipline,” the Bull continued, choosing his words carefully. “He lashes out, like a child, for the slightest offenses, or no offense at all. It makes it hard to follow the rules for some, because there’s no incentive for good behavior.”  
  
Marini’s frowned deepened, but he didn’t think she was angry at him. That was something. “Do you think that there’s a risk of insurrection in the ludus?”  
  
“Not immediately,” the Bull assured her. “People are more scared of him than they are angry. But it has the potential to end up somewhere very ugly.”  
  
Marini nodded slowly. “You know, Kedronus wasn’t my first choice for the position. But I needed someone with a bit more experience in running a ludus, and with so many new fighters competition to secure a lanista’s services was unexpectedly fierce. He was the best option left to me.” She looked directly up at him. “There will be another chance to trade up in lanistas, if the ludus does well during the regular games season. And by all means, you can tell the others that.”  
  
And she was going to use him as a friendly face to be her mouthpiece for the gladiators. Great. “Thank you, ma’am.”  
  
“Can you be trusted to walk yourself back to the courtyard?” she asked.   
  
If it meant that he could maybe poke around the house a little first… “Yes ma’am.”  
  
“Good,” Marini replied. “You’re dismissed. Decimus! A word, please.”

Decimus walked back into the office as the Bull left. He waited until he heard the door close behind him and he’d rounded the corner before he let himself really think about what he was going to do next.   
  
He hoped he hadn’t made things worse.

* * *

 

He didn’t take too much of a detour on his way out, however much he might want to. It was too likely that leaving the house unescorted would be noticed and remarked upon. He couldn’t risk there being a suspicious amount of time between when Marini thought he was going to leave and when he actually  _did_  leave.  
  
Still, he looked. The rooms were full of ornate sculptures and fancy furniture and delicate mosaic tiling. One room was in the process of being worked on, a quartet of elves and humans with matching collars pressing the tiling down into the cement as a human watched and cautioned them to heed his underdrawing. Another room he recognized by the snake molding as the room they’d written their letters in- it had since been filled with triculums, potted plants, and a small fountain.  He ran into one of the house slaves, a twitchy-looking elven boy who let out a squeak when he saw the Bull and darted behind one of the tapestries lining the hall before the Bull could reassure him that they were on the same side. When the Bull pulled the tapestry back, he could see a narrow passage between the room, and the boy’s retreating back.  
  
Huh. Good to know.  
  
He checked behind the tapestries after that, and found three more passageways. One of them seemed to lead to the kitchen- he could smell food cooking, at least- and another was being used as a make-out spot for a pair of teenaged girls, who thankfully didn’t seem to notice him before he dropped the cloth back down again. Another tapestry hid a bunch of holes in the wall, and in each of those was a metal spike, probably dipped in poison, spring-loaded and waiting to be triggered. Another tapestry covered what looked like a perfectly normal wall, but felt  _wrong_  and left the Bull feeling unsettled long after he dropped the tapestry and continued down the hall.  
  
There must have been at least a dozen hallways like this one on this floor alone, and the house was five stories high at its tallest point. Assuming the layouts were identical on each floor as they almost always were on Seheron, that meant there were five dozen hallways honeycombed with secret passages that could as easily be used to flank an enemy as to let a slave pass through unseen, coated in traps for any would-be intruder.  
  
This wasn’t a house Marini was living in. It was a  _fortress_.  
  
That had potential. If they could concentrate the initial assault on the house, Marini would recall his guards inside, and bunker down to wait for them to come to her. They’d have to keep expending some energy on the house to keep up appearances, but everyone else could go down to the cells, bust them all out.  If they could get their hands on some weapons, then that would add somewhere north of sixty trained fighters to their ranks. That would more than double the number of people he’d had in the Chargers, even assuming they all survived and showed up.  
  
They could burn this place to the  _ground_. Especially if they could get the mages uncollared.  
  
But he was getting ahead of himself. He needed to decode Subira’s message before he even seriously thought about escaping, and before he did that he needed to get through the rest of today.

By the time he returned to the courtyard, Dorian had been cut down and healed, and had returned to their table to eat. He was the only one there: Mara was rereading her advisio under the gingko tree for the umpteenth time, and Tavarius and Hillarion had set up the mancala board in the corner, where the guards were unlikely to ‘accidentally’ kick it as they walked by. They were playing, while Yenko and Crispin needled them with contradictory advice and Vola watched with interest.  
  
Yenko noticed him first, and waved. The Bull waved back as he sat down next to Dorian.  
  
“What have you got there, Bull?” Yenko asked.  
  
“My boon,” the Bull called back. “Chocolates, from Subira! You want one?”  
  
“Don’t mind if I do,” Yenko replied with a grin, standing to walk back over to the table. Tavarius and the others followed, Mara after carefully folding her advisio under her arm, and Hillarion after hurriedly gathering the mancala stones up into a bag. He was probably losing, then. Otherwise he would have just brought the board over and kept the pieces in place.  
  
It was probably just as well that he hadn’t, though: the Bull was suddenly being crowded, and not just with the people from his cellblock. Everyone suddenly wanted to be near just in case he decided to be a little more generous with his boon. That wasn’t going to happen, though. For one thing, there weren’t enough chocolates to go around to more people than just his cellblock. For another, if he wanted to have a good excuse to keep getting packages from Subira he had to pretend to really like these weirdly sweet things.  
  
The crowd had its purpose, though. It gave him a good way to tell everyone about the upcoming party without having to shout.  
  
“Tomorrow?” Hillarion asked, looking crestfallen.  
  
“I knew she’d have to have it soon,” Yenko said. “But I didn’t think it would be this soon. They’re not even finished redecorating.”  
  
“She said something about not wanting to let the buzz surrounding the game die down,” the Bull told them.  
  
“The buzz surrounding your wins, more like,” one of the other gladiators- Inaros was his name, maybe- said.  
  
The Bull frowned at the tone. The absolute last thing he wanted was for one of the other gladiators to get it into their heads that they should be  _rivals_.  
  
Before he could come up with a way to diffuse the situation, one the guards cleared her throat behind him. The crowd parted immediately, and fell silent: she was one of the touchy ones.  
  
“May I have one of those chocolates, Iron Bull?” she asked. She pretended to ask.  
  
“Of course, ma’am,” he replied, plucking one out the box at random and holding it out to her.  
  
She took it directly from his fingers with her mouth, her teeth scraping against the pad of his finger in a way that was obviously sexual. The Bull had to work to keep his face schooled- he hated, he really fucking  _hated_  how ‘sexual’ and ‘threatening’ were starting to blend together when he knew better, when sex was supposed to be a tool in  _his_  arsenal. He should by trying to find some way to use this against her, not agonizing over its existence, but he could barely keep disgust from showing.  
  
Beneath the table, Dorian’s hand came to rest on his knee, his weight shifting ever so slightly to press more firmly against him.  
  
She smiled as she pulled away. “It’s good to know I can rely on you to accommodate my tastes,” she said. There was still a bit of chocolate smeared on her teeth. The Bull didn’t mention it to her.  
  
“Always happy to help, ma’am,” he replied as she left.

Pretty much all of the other gladiators had slipped away while she was busy with him, so it was just the two of them left at the table: Dorian with his hand on the Bull’s knee, and the Bull slowly relaxing his muscles before he could give himself a headache.  
  
“I realize this is a terrible time for it,” Dorian said, after a moment. “But I have a favor to ask.”  
  
“Actually, this is a great time,” the Bull said. “I could use something to do.” He couldn’t decode Subira’s message yet, so anything but feeling like he was six feet deep in quicksand would be great right now, and if it did some good? Even better.  
  
“Yes, you're always happy to help,” Dorian said, and then immediately winced. “That was a terrible thing to say, I apologize.”  
  
“Eh, you’re not entirely wrong,” the Bull said, catching his hand before Dorian could slip it back off his leg. Dorian started a bit, before relaxing, and slotting his fingers between the Bull’s. “I like helping people, when they aren’t- well, you know.”  
  
“Unfortunately, I do,” Dorian agreed. “Which brings me back to my point. You remember the conversation we had before, maybe a month or so after I- after I was brought here?”  
  
“Pretty much,” the Bull said. It had been the first time they’d sat together, among other things. “You wanted tips.”  
  
“And you told me that I needed practice,” Dorian replied. “Well. I’m to have time for that now, and I can’t- that is, I don’t know  _how_ , so any advice you have to offer of the subject would be greatly appreciated.”  
  
“What is it you’re looking to learn how to do, exactly?” the Bull asked him.  
  
“I’m not trying to increase my value or whatever the usual reasons are, if that’s what you mean,” Dorian said. “I’m just- I’d like to get through a  _single day_  without getting my ribs kicked in or losing skin off my back. Maybe even both at once. Maybe even for consecutive days!”  
  
“That kind of  _is_  the regular reason, Dorian,” the Bull pointed out.  
  
“Was it really so- well, I suppose it must have been that bad, where you were.” Dorian gave his hand, the one with the missing fingers, a squeeze.  
  
He must have assumed that was the work of the previous owner he was pretending to have. And he wasn’t far off either. It had happened on Seheron, when he’d spent six days chained up in some ‘Vint dungeon. The magister in charge of the place had taken the time to explain that normally he cut bits of finger off of the children whose parents didn’t meet their quota.  
  
Watching Vasaad and Gatt tear that guy to pieces had been a real pleasure.  
  
“I hate to break this to you, but this is pretty much as good as it gets,” the Bull said.  
  
“I- well is it so bad that I want it to be a little more good?” Dorian asked.  
  
“No, of course not,” the Bull said. He added after a moment of thought. “It’s your body language.”  
  
“What about it?”  
  
“Look: you’re scared, right?”  
  
“What makes you say that?”  
  
“How did you put it before? ‘Because you’re not a blithering moron’, something like that?”  
  
Dorian snorted. “That does sound like something I’d say.”  
  
“My advice? Let it show. Let it show before they start closing in on you. They already know you’re scared, they just-” He doubled checked- none of the guards were paying them any particular attention. “They just want to break you of your control. You just have to convince them that they’ve done it without actually breaking.”

Dorian mulled that one over, staring blankly down into his empty bowl of soup. “Did you ever meet our leader?” he asked.  
  
“Our?”  
  
Dorian tapped his brand.  
  
“Oh, no. I didn’t,” the Bull said. “Did you?”  
  
“Several times, as a matter of fact,” Dorian said. “She told me once that the worst part of being a slave was that people stopped thinking. They stopped feeling, almost: they would go about the motions, but everything else was shut down. It happened to people you knew, people you liked- she’d said that she felt she might have ended up like that, had her magic not manifested. I- I can’t imagine that. If nothing else, I’m determined to keep hating them until the bitter end.”  
  
That was more information about the Lucerni leader than he’d ever heard before, and he took a moment to commit it to memory.  
  
“There’s a lot of ground to cover,” the Bull said. “Between here, and not being able to think.”  
  
“And I should like to see as little of it as possible,” Dorian said.  
  
“I’ll let you know if I can think of anything specific that you can do,” the Bull said. There probably would be, once he had enough time to think it through. “In the meantime, just try to keep your head down. Literally. A lot of people will take eye contact as a challenge.”  
  
Dorian snorted, but didn’t protest. They stayed there, watching the renewed mancala match from their table, until the guards started herding everyone back into their cells.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This portion of the story was posted on the kinkmeme in the period of December 18th 2016- January 19th 2017.
> 
> References to rape happen at both the very beginning and very end of this installment- nothing is described in any detail.

Training was cancelled the following day in favor of getting them all buffed and polished for the party. The Bull, surprisingly, took up more of their time than anyone else: more than Mara, who was having the grey dyed out of her hair, more than Dorian and Hillarion, who were being waxed and tweezed free of all their hair from the neck down, and more than Vola, who was having her jagged horn trimmed even and then sanded smooth.  
  
It made the Bull wince in sympathy. She was going to have one shitting headache when they were finished doing that.  
  
But when it came to the Bull, it wasn’t just that they wanted him to be as pretty as he could be, they wanted him to look a little  _exotic_ , like he was fresh from Seheron. Apparently, that meant vitaar.  
  
They didn’t have any vitaar. They didn’t seem to have a very clear picture of what vitaar even was. They had paint- regular paint, in the same kind of green as the clothing they were all wearing that night- which two of the slaves diligently applied to the Bull’s body in a pattern that kind of looked like vitaar if you squinted at it upside down while drunk. It took a long time to dry, and by the time it did it had started to crack every time he so much as expanded his rib cage to breathe.  
  
In the meantime, they’d begun to argue over what was being done to his hair. One of them had been told to braid it, the other felt there wasn’t enough time for it and they should just shave it off if they did anything at all. They brought Marini in to mediate, and she’d immediately latched onto the paint as the bigger problem, as it had passed the point of cracking and was now beginning to flake off.  
  
“No one is going to want to touch him like that,” she seethed, which suddenly made the paint seem like a really good idea.  
  
No one else seemed to think so, so the paint was scrubbed off, and some henna was mixed with a strong green dye before being applied in exactly the same way as the paint had been. That meant that the pattern had been predetermined, instead of made up on the fly. He wondered who had the final say in that. Marini did something with her magic that made his skin prickle and the dye settle into his skin in a matter of moments. By that time there really was no time to do much of anything with his hair, so they left it alone and sped through everything else, summoning a guard to bring him to the house.  
  
The party hadn’t started yet, though it was clearly going to be held in the banquet hall he was brought to. The other gladiators were congregated to one side, around a plain wooden table that held their rations for the evening: stew, bread, wine, and tonic.  
  
The Bull took his allotment and headed to where his cellblock’s people were milling around.

“-should have left me a little patch of hair on my chin, if they wanted me to be recognizable,” Dorian was grumbling. “They could have at least cut the sides of my hair short.”  
  
“They probably didn’t want us to be confused for one another,” Crispin said. His hair had been cut shorter than Dorian’s, and he was sporting a full goatee.  
  
“Maybe they should dye somebody’s hair then,” the Bull said. “I think Dorian might look good as a redhead, don’t you?”  
  
A resounding silence was all the reply he got. Silence, and Mara’s hand twitching towards a dagger she no longer carried on her at all times. Apparently while the patterns on his chest look like shit all to him, they still looked enough like vitaar to trigger a ‘Vint soldier’s reflexes. Hopefully there wouldn’t be a lot of soldiers at the party tonight.  
  
“Why are your lips painted orange?” Dorian demanded, which broke the tension.  
  
The Bull shrugged. “Beats me.”  
  
“They’re kind of a peachy-pinkish sort of orange,” Hillarion said, squinting a little.  
  
“That doesn’t explain  _why_ ,” Dorian replied.  
  
Vola made a gesture which Yenko both responded to and translated as a laugh.  
  
They went back and forth as the Bull ate, and observed. They were all dressed more or less identically, save for the halters the women wore on their chests: the same green-and-electrum loincloth he’d worn to the parties above the antetheater during the games, with matching electrum cuffs around their wrists and ankles. And there was also the chastity belt, which was pretty fucking uncomfortable, if he did say so himself. While the one he was wearing had at least been designed with a qunari in mind, he kind of got the impression that the qunari had been a little bit smaller than he was. Hopefully the others had ones that fit them better, because his was started to chafe a bit.  
  
The banquet hall was filled with larger, fancier looking tables and a lot of triculums, lined with little nooks adorned with drapes that could be pulled shut for privacy and housing a small fountain in the center, which seemed to be spouting wine rather than water. The house slaves were busy with various preparations, covering the tables with clean linen and fluffing up the pillows on the triculums. A lot of them were watching the gladiators, some openly and most just out of the corners of their eyes. The Bull wondered if they came off as more of a threat to the others, or if they were just curious. There wasn’t a whole lot of overlap between the two groups- Yenko aside, they mostly saw them from a distance.  
  
Once the Bull had finished eating and Crispin and Dorian had moved on to arguing about wine pairings for their rations, he interjected with “So, has anyone ever been to one of these?”

“Not from this end of things,” Dorian said, causing Yenko and Vola to look at him askance. He shifted uncomfortably. “It wasn’t- I mean. My family and most of their allies like to keep at least a  _pretense_  that they don’t fuck their slaves. I always figured these sort of preparations-” He swept his arm around the room, pausing briefly to regard a slave who was carrying a large platter of vials of oil. Some of the others came to help him secret them away in the nooks. There wasn’t much of a pretense here. “-were an invitation to seduce some of the other guests, and/or various male members of the household.”  
  
“So, there’ll be a lot of male members,” the Bull said, ignoring Dorian’s aborted sound of outrage. “Anything else?”  
  
After a moment, Vola began to sign something.  
  
“Danarius used to host a lot of these parties, and attended more,” Yenko translated. “There was always a lot of blood magic involved.”  
  
“Is Marini a blood mage?” the Bull asked.  
  
“She probably knows some blood magic spells,” Crispin said. “She’s Laetan, so there’s no way she was able to avoid military service. Unless she took a morality exemption, she would have learned some basic spells at the academy, and she doesn’t seem like the type to seek an exemption.”  
  
Dorian shifted uncomfortably at the mention of blood magic, and wouldn’t look at Crispin dead on. It gave the Bull the unpleasant suspicion that Crispin hadn’t taken an exemption either.  
  
“Her primary specialization appears to be force magic,” Dorian added. “Not that it might stop her from whipping out a sacrificial dagger for fun, or allowing her guests to do the same.”  
  
“We should be safe enough from that, though, don’t you think?” Tavarius said. “I mean, we’re kind of where she makes her money.”  
  
“I’d be more worried about the others,” Yenko agreed, jerking his head towards the house slaves bustling around. “If we’re going for a pittance in gold at auction, then twelve-year-old kitchen hands are probably down to silvers by now, if not coppers. It wouldn’t be hard to replace them.”  
  
Vola signed something that made Yenko go a little green.  
  
“What is it now?” Hillarion said with a sigh.  
  
“It’s- she says that it’s possible that a desire demon might summoned,” Yenko translated with visible reluctance. “And then kind of… set it on us. As a show.”  
  
The Bull set his stew bowl aside so he wouldn’t snap the clay in his hands. Fucking demons fucking- he wasn’t sure he could do that. Kill a demon, sure, but-  
  
“ _Festis bei umo canavarum_ ,” Dorian muttered, looking like the Bull felt.  
  
“Is that really likely, though?” Mara asked. “I mean- look, I’ve been on Seheron more or less as long as most of you have been alive. I know what blood magic looks like, and I’ve got a pretty clear picture of different kinds of demons. Desire demons are one of the more powerful kinds, right?”  
  
Both Crispin and Dorian nodded.  
  
“And the more powerful the demon, the more powerful you have to be to keep it in line. Summoning  _any_  demon to do  _anything_  to someone you intend to make money off of isn’t something most people would do lightly. A lot of people wouldn’t attempt it at all.”  
  
Vola signed something which Yenko translated as “It makes for an ugly surprise. She prefers being warned about the possibility than to have no idea what’s coming.”  
  
“Fair enough,” Mara said.  
  
That kind of killed the conversation for the rest of the meal. They stayed quiet until it was done.

* * *

 

The house slaves took the debris from the gladiators’ dinner away, table and all, shortly thereafter. Decimus came forward then, and had them gather around as he gave them all their instructions for the night. It was more or less the same as the speech Marini had given him before the antetheater party: the proper forms of address, not to eat or drink anything, behave so you can get a sponsor…  
  
“And if you try anything untoward there will be consequences,” he warned them. He walked over to what looked like a podium to the Bull, but sprang open to reveal several slender rods. “You all know what a control rod is by now I presume?”  
  
There was a general uncomfortable shuffling that signaled the affirmative. Decimus selected a rod seemingly at random, and turned to face them once more.  
  
“These are tied to the cuffs you are all wearing,” Decimus explained. He held the rod up so they could see it, and the key dangling from its bottom. “With one swipe, I can rob you of your strength.”  
  
That was all the warning the Bull receive before he was suddenly so weak that he couldn’t so much as support his own weight. He would have collapsed on the floor, if Vola hadn’t been standing right behind him to catch him, and Dorian and Hillarion hadn’t been there to help lower him gently to the floor.  
  
“With another swipe, I can cause you unimaginable pain.”  
  
The Bull braced himself, but the pain was even worse than he was expecting. It wasn’t just radiating out from the cuffs, it was everywhere. It bubbled in his veins like acid, it stabbed through his skin like knives. Dorian’s arm around him felt like a vise threatening to split his rib cage open, and when he started shouting it hammered against his skull even though he couldn’t make out the words.  
  
“Stop it,” Dorian was saying when the pain suddenly abated, leaving behind the ache of muscles that had tensed and joints that had locked against it. “You’ve made your point, now  _please stop_.”  
  
The Bull grunted. It was the most he could manage with his jaw all locked up like it was. Dorian fell silent.  
  
“Stand up, Iron Bull,” Decimus ordered.  
  
It wasn’t something the Bull could do under his own power right at that moment. Dorian slung one of his arms over his shoulder for support, and Hillarion crouched back down to do the same on his other side, while Vola bent forwards to hook her hands under his shoulders and do most of the heavy lifting. With their help, he stood.  
  
Decimus continued, explaining that the key went to their chastity belts, and what was and was not expected of them when it came to the people who wanted their time-  _wanted their time_ , yeah, it sounded real polite like that. It wasn’t anything the Bull couldn’t have guessed, so he mostly focused on forcing his muscles to relax.  
  
He needed to be able to play along. If he played along, chances were good he could get a message out to his boys, and then this could fucking end. He could get out of here. If he played his cards right, he could get  _everyone_  out of here.  
  
“Are you okay?” Dorian asked once Decimus had finished his lecture.  
  
“I’ll be fine,” the Bull replied. “You?”  
  
“As much as I can be, I guess,” Dorian said. “We’ll probably both be pretty busy tonight.”  
  
“Probably,” the Bull agreed.  
  
“Before you showed up, Yenko was saying that it wasn’t uncommon for the staff- the house slaves, I mean- to set up some kind of quiet area. A literal breathing room, if you will. He was going to try and figure out where it is, so if you get a moment to speak with him…”  
  
“I’ll ask about it,” the Bull finished.  
  
Dorian nodded, as the main doors to the banquet hall opened.  
  
“Well. I suppose it’s time to see if I’ve retained the ability to act politely towards people I despise,” he said. “Good luck.”  
  
“Same to you.”

* * *

 

The party went pretty much exactly as he was expecting it to. While still pretty bad, it wasn't nearly as awful as Vola had warned them it might be. No demons were summoned, and the closest thing there was to ritual blood letting was the play fights that they would occasionally be called to fight on the lawn. No one was killed, and as far as he could tell, that held true for the house slaves as well. It was probably as good as they were going to get.  
  
That didn’t mean it didn’t still suck.   
  
He was one of the more popular gladiators, which he’d been expecting, though he spent a lot less time in those nooks than he’d feared, and a lot more time talking to whatever ‘Vints had bunched around him. A lot of them seemed real interested in his ability to hold a conversation. One younger man was shocked to discover that qunari could speak at all: he’d thought, that since all the other qunari he’d ever encountered had had their tongues removed, that they just weren’t intelligent enough to speak.  
  
He’d gotten verbally torn down by the rest of the group, which was weird to watch. It wasn’t like they disagreed with him, exactly, so much as the only thing a group of ‘Vints liked more than to show their superiority over other types of people was to show their superiority over other ‘Vints.  
  
The others weren’t exactly having a good time, except for maybe Yenko, who managed to disappear sometime after the Bull had gotten pulled into a nook for the second time and not return. Hillarion was unfortunately popular, as were some of the others from different cellblocks: all young and relatively unscarred, which seemed to be what most people wanted, or felt safe advertising they wanted, at least. He got the impression over the course of the night that the ‘Vints were keeping close tabs on who went for what, and that people who went for anything less standard were either those who could afford the scandal or benefit from it. It was something to pick Dorian’s brain about later, maybe. He might have been largely oblivious to this kind of thing as an Altus, but he still understood the mentality- still operated in it too, sometimes.  
  
Like tonight, for example.  
  
He saw glimpses of Dorian every now and again, mostly in between one particular magister or tribune or whoever isolating him from the group and being surrounded again. It seemed to the Bull that Dorian’s skills at making polite conversation with people he despised had always been lacking, if this was his idea of it. He wore a look of barely-contained disdain that sat uncomfortably on his face, a little vacant and obviously manufactured. It had probably been his default expression for social functions back when he could still count himself a member of the Altus class, and it was plain to see that he hadn’t used it in a while- and that it didn’t work so well when you were half-naked and not allowed to hit back.  
  
He only saw Dorian literally get hit once. It wasn’t on the list of things that their potential sponsors were allowed to do to them, even if the guards didn’t seem inclined to intervene as Dorian rocked back from the force of the blow. For a moment, the Bull caught sight of his face without the affect: angry and just about ready to spit in defiance.  
  
“Close the curtains, will you?” asked the senior enchanter who’d paid Marini some ludicrous amount of gold for this encounter- his price seemed to be going up every time someone went to pay.  
  
The Bull closed the curtains. By the time he was allowed out again, Dorian was gone from the main floor, and within minutes there was another flock of admirers around the Bull.  
  
He smiled in all the right places, made  _actually_  polite conversation, and even managed to get a few laughs. And throughout it all, he watched, and he listened.

Vola was left largely alone, the novelty of being a qunari overshadowed by there being another qunari in the room who could talk- even with one of the house slaves standing by her to translate, most of the ‘Vints didn’t have the patience for it.  
  
Crispin seemed to be having an average time of it, save for one instance when Dorian, his affect cracked and showing something like terror, was lead up to Marini by some magister the Bull didn’t recognize. The magister and Marini talked, and then Marini summoned Crispin to them, and the magister went off with her consolation prize, leaving Dorian with Marini, looking more than a little shocked.  
  
Two of the military personnel that had been invited got into an argument in front of him. Apparently a damn had burst in Nessum, and the flooding had wiped out a good portion of the Imperium’s military forces that had been laying siege to the place. The tribune thought that they should pull back and completely pacify Solas before trying to lay siege to Nessum again, while the imperator was certain that if they didn’t press their advantage now, the Lucerni would only be able to dig into the city more deeply. The Bull added that to the pile of things he’d have to talk about with the others later.  
  
Hillarion left one of the nooks looking like he was one sudden move away from a nervous collapse. Mara started heading over to him before the Bull could try to extricate himself from the current knot of people he was entertaining, and ushered him back into the nook, drawing the curtains behind them to give him some privacy. By the time the Bull could look again, the curtains had been opened, and neither one of them was anywhere to be seen.  
  
One of the magisters who talked to him after that was a Vilnius Uthar, a man with a red mourning sash across the waste of his official purple-and-gold robes. His daughter had died, or so everyone kept saying when they offered him their rote, empty condolences.  
  
“Pardon me for asking this if it’s out of line, ser,” the Bull said, checking the other man’s reactions carefully. “But your daughter wouldn’t happen to be Altus Sequnda, would she?” He looked a lot like her. They had the same eyes, and the same nose, and the same particularly creepy way of looking down it at him, at least.  
  
“My  _living_  daughter is, yes,” the magister replied stiffly. “How do you know of her?”  
  
“She showed an interest in me during one of the parties above the antetheater we stayed in during the ludii victoria, ser,” the Bull replied.  
  
The magister looked him up and down, more than a little despairingly. “Yes. Of course she did.”  
  
He wandered off after that, which didn’t give the Bull any chance to figure out what kind of dynamic there was there.  
  
He ran into Tavarius not long after that: the magisters they were each with were friends of some kind or another. They spoke a little, mostly about the grain dole and the drought, and then they spoke about something a little closer to home.  
  
“Have you seen him yet? The former scion of House Pavus?”  
  
“Yes. His tongue’s not quite as sharp as it used to be. I suppose they’ve beaten that out of him. It’s almost a pity- he used to be rather entertaining.”  
  
“It’s come too late, if you ask me. If his father had beaten some respect into him earlier we might not be in this mess.”  
  
“Do you really think he was that important? I mean, you’ve been to the Ineni ludus. They’ve got an elf there who claims she was one of their generals, and she’s not even a mage.”  
  
“Well, I don’t see why the Archon would have spared him, unless he thought that he was important enough to the Lucerni to be used as part of a suit for peace.” The words ripped the veneer of friendliness right off the conversation. “I suppose you have your own theory?”

“We all have nothing but theories, Lagus,” the Bull’s magister evaded. “The Archon is playing this one very close to the chest. And as he has not yet announced the replacements for his successors, there is no one to ask.”  
  
“Still, Hakoris,” said Tavarius’ magister. “I don’t believe I’ve heard your take on the matter, and I must admit, I am curious.”  
  
Hakoris sighed. “In all honesty, I think that all this conjecture is exactly why the Archon has declined to inform anyone of his designs. He wants us guessing.”  
  
“Obviously,” Lagus said with a dismissive wave. “The more uncertain we are, the less likely we are to get any  _ideas_  about taking the matter of succession into our own hands. But as to what else he wants…”  
  
“If we cannot get our answer from the Archon, I can think of only one other party who might know,” Hakoris said. “Unfortunately for us, Magister Sodasa seems to have taken a shine to him, I haven’t seen either of them for the better part of an hour.”  
  
“Ah. Something to keep in mind for next time, then,” Lagus said.   
  
“Perhaps,” Hakoris said. “Though, that does not mean that the party is unsalvageable. You should feel free to join us- you and your man.”  
  
It was a possibility that had flitted through the Bull’s mind when Vola had mentioned putting on a show. He’d very carefully not thought about it, because he needed to play nice if he wanted to get out of this. He could dissect all the terrible, ‘Vinty ways ‘Vints were terrible when he wrote his report. Otherwise, Yenko had it right: don’t go borrowing trouble.   
  
Thankfully, trouble didn’t want to borrow  _him_ , this particular time.   
  
“Oh, no thank you,” the other magister demurred. “We’ve just finished.”  
  
Once that was over with- sixth ‘Vint of the night, though only the first to pay for the key to the chastity belt- the Bull hung back a while. He tried to count exits from the room, remembered that the tapestries might conceal some more, and gave up. He watched Marini for a time. She seemed pleased with the way things were going, which was probably better than the alternative.   
  
She was being attended to by two young women, one of whom was probably the woman he’d seen her kissing in her study. It was hard to tell which of them it was: they were both blonde haired, green eyed, and olive skinned. He thought the skinnier one might be her: the other one was obviously practiced at these parties, and didn’t stare so much. It spoke of training and familiarity, and he sort of thought that the girl from the study had been a field hand before Marini had taken a shine to her.  
  
They were both young, though. Adults, yes, but really young ones.  
  
From his right, Dorian slid along the shadows at the edge of the room, and came to a halt next to him.  
  
“Not the best party I’ve ever been to,” Dorian remarked.   
  
“Is it the worst?” The Bull asked.   
  
“Well, as no one is dead and there have been a decided lack of assassination attempts...” Dorian’s voice trailed off. He sighed, and finished in a more subdued tone. “Actually, yes, it is the worst. I’d give rather a lot to be at one of my father’s respectably dull soirées right about now.”  
  
They stood in silence for moment, most of the party-goers by now either drunk into a stupor on one of the triculums, watching what sounded like an interesting fight out on the lawn, or otherwise involved. There was someone fucking in the nook to their left, for example.  
  
“Have you managed to speak with Yenko?” Dorian asked.  
  
“I haven’t seen him in hours,” the Bull replied.   
  
“So, you haven’t taken a break yet, then,” Dorian said.   
  
“No, you?”  
  
“I had an entire ten minutes in which to rinse out my mouth and pretend like I could call the night over,” Dorian replied. He held out his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you where it is.”  
  
The Bull took it, and let himself be lead away.

* * *

 

They managed, by some miracle, to avoid notice as they made their way over to the tapestry that concealed a passageway out of the room. It wasn’t empty. There was an elf there, little more than a girl, who was carrying a heavy platter of quiches and muttering to herself.   
  
“Smile,” she was saying. “Smile. Remember to smile.”  
  
“Good luck,” the Bull told her, which did actually cause her to smile for a moment.   
  
She froze the expression on her face, squared her shoulders, and walked back into the banquet hall. Dorian pulled him along, going farther away.  
  
He lead the Bull past a short passageway that opened into the kitchen- brightly lit, smelling of food, and full of sound. They got farther and farther away, and then Dorian stopped suddenly, muttered “the  _fourth_  right” and doubled back a bit before bringing them down another corridor.   
  
That one eventually lead them outside, coming up just to the north of the guards’ living quarters. The trellis was open into the outer garden area, and Dorian lead him through it, ignoring the sound of the show fight still going on behind them. There were a handful of guests milling around, and the Bull could see the glinting of light off of the guards’ blades on the wall’s battlements, but it was a lot quieter here, and Dorian no longer moved like he was trying not to attract attention.   
  
It was almost dawn. One of the moons was sinking beneath the horizon, opposite the pre-dawn grey light of the approaching sun. The Bull was surprised that the party had been going on for that long, and disturbed by his own surprise. Losing track of time was not a good sign.  
  
Dorian lead him west, towards where the hovels were, and then abruptly ducked off to the left behind some flowering bushes.   
  
This was it, the Bull could tell even before Dorian dropped his hand. There was a plain, unadorned fountain pooling into a cistern, towels hanging over the bushes as they dried, and a small knot of slaves gathered at the corner, at the center of which was Yenko.   
  
“So the Magister looks at me, and I’m thinking  _Well, this is it_ , but instead of killing me, he just says  _Good job on getting away from those savages. I suppose you’re entitled to a boon_. And then, while maintaining eye contact, he pulls off his boot, peels off his sock, and gives it to me.”  
  
“His sock?” asked one of the other slaves.   
  
“His sock. And it stank like he’d been trying to press fish into wine with it on,” Yenko confirmed. “So there I am, trying not to gag, and he says  _This is a fitting reward for your story, don’t you think_?”  
  
“Andraste’s ass,” said another, this one sounding very Fereldan. “He knew?”  
  
“He at least suspected,” Yenko said. “Joke was on him, though. Once the stench had faded I took another look at his ‘boon’, and found that it had been embroidered with gold thread- valuable stuff. Enough to trade for coin, which provided the funds for my next escape attempt.”  
  
“Andraste’s tits,” muttered the Fereldan.   
  
Dorian watched them, arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrow climbing higher and higher.   
  
“So much for ‘You can’t spend too much time here, or you’ll be missed’, Yenko” he said.   
  
It was the wrong thing to say. The slaves fell silent, save for Yenko, who laughed.  
  
“ _You_ , they’ll miss,” he said. “ _Me_  they still get confused with the house slaves.”  
  
Dorian rolled his eyes, in response, but said nothing more, turning his attention back to the cistern.  
  
“There’s not much in the way of drinking utensils, I’m afraid,” he said, indicating the ladles propped against the side as the others resumed their conversation.  
  
“Ladles are fine,” the Bull said.   
  
They drank. The Bull hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until the first drop of water passed his lips. By the time he’d had his fill, the sky was noticeably lighter, and he could hear the first notes of birdsong from beyond the walls.

“How long do these things normally last?” he asked.   
  
“This should be the tail end of it,” Dorian replied. “It's in terribly poor taste to allow these sort of gatherings to persist into the light of day, you know.”  
  
The Bull nodded. “Do you think we should head back?”  
  
“I think we might have a few minutes before we’re missed, and I would hate to spend them in other company.”  
  
The Bull smiled. “I’ll be sure to tell Crispin how much you appreciate his company.”  
  
“Ha,” Dorian replied tiredly.  
  
For a moment, neither one of them said anything.  The Bull ran through all the topics he’d be planning on discussing with Dorian before dismissing each in turn. It was all shop talk, mostly: things he would likely want to include in his next letter to Subira. Even the stuff that wasn’t only that, but was something he actually thought Dorian should hear, wasn’t very heartening. The night hadn’t be a gentle one, and it wasn’t like they didn’t have time to talk about it later.  
  
He’d just decided to say nothing at all when Dorian spoke.   
  
“You’ve got something you want to ask me,” He said.   
  
“It can wait,” the Bull told him.   
  
“If that’s in an effort to spare my feelings, I’d rather have the distraction now, please.”  
  
The Bull studied him for a moment. “Did something happen? Worse than usual?”  
  
“Yes. No. I don't-” Dorian cut himself off. “There was a woman earlier- and nothing  _happened_ , Marini- Maker, poor Crispin.” He trailed off guiltily.   
  
“Yeah. I saw,” the Bull told him.   
  
Dorian nodded. “I don’t know why- I mean, it’s not like I’d want to have sex with  _any_  of them under these circumstances. All things considered, it shouldn’t matter, but it does.”  
  
“I think you’re allowed to hate some things more than others,” the Bull pointed out.  
  
“Do you know what the worst part is?” Dorian asked. He didn’t give the Bull any time to respond before he continued. “For a moment there, I felt  _grateful_ , that she wasn’t going to make me go through with it. And then I felt horrible, because she was going to foist her off on Crispin instead. And then she said- I don’t suppose you heard it?”  
  
The Bull shook his head.   
  
“She said that,she felt the need to ‘reserve those rights to my person, for now’, and then arranged for her to take Crispin at a reduced price” Dorian told him, looking distraught. “I- I don’t know how I’m going to be able to handle that, if it comes.  _When_  it comes, I suppose. I don’t doubt that she- if she’s really got a time or circumstance in mind, then- I don’t-  _vishante kaffas_.”  
  
Dorian leaned heavily against the cistern, and fell silent.  
  
“I hate not being able to intervene,” the Bull said. “That’s the worst part for me. I hate just having to sit there, and watch and do  _nothing_  while people keep being hurt for no fucking reason at all. I keep feeling like I should be able to stop it.”  
  
“If it makes a difference,” Dorian said slowly. “Then you should know that you’ve been a veritable wellspring of- of comfort, as far as I’m concerned. And I’m sure the others would say the same.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yes, really.” Dorian raised his voice slightly to ask. “Isn’t that right, Yenko?”  
  
“What are you trying to get me to agree to?” Yenko replied.  
  
“That the Bull is a premium source of comfort,” Dorian replied promptly.   
  
Yenko looked between them for a moment. “You know what? You’re both too old to need a matchmaker, leave me out of this.”  
  
That was not what the Bull had thought he was going to say. From the expression on his face Dorian had  _really_  not expected him to say that. It was kind of ridiculous, the way he looked right now.  
  
Maybe more than kind of ridiculous. Maybe a lot more.   
  
“Oh shut up,” Dorian hissed as the Bull started to laugh, which only made him laugh harder. After a moment, Dorian joined in.

There was another moment of silence after the laughter died down, this one more companionable than before. It was only broken when Yenko spoke again.  
  
“We should head back soon. There’s bound to be a roll call at the party’s end.”  
  
“You go on ahead,” Dorian said. “I’m going to make one last effort to get the taste out of my mouth before they lock us all in for the night.”  
  
Yenko left. Dorian reached for the ladle.   
  
“Water not working for you?” the Bull asked.   
  
Dorian snorted. “Not without something else to override the taste. I swear, if I ever get a boon I’m using it to ask for a proper teeth-cleaning kit with some mint and lemon verbena and actual neem brushes.”  
  
“You could use something besides water,” the Bull pointed out.   
  
Dorian didn’t get it. “While I would normally be all in favor of swiping some of that wine, I would not put it past Marini to induce vomiting to double-check that we’ve complied with her demands to neither eat nor drink.”  
  
“I don’t mean the wine,” the Bull said, pointing.  
  
Dorian still didn’t get it. “What are you pointing at?”  
  
“That’s honeysuckle, Dorian,” the Bull said.   
  
“And? Is it edible, somehow?”  
  
“Yeah. It tastes pretty good, too.”  
  
Dorian scowled at the bush, like it had been intentionally hiding that fact from him.   
  
“I presume the flower is the edible part?”  
  
“Yeah, I mean- hang on,” the Bull turned back towards the house slaves, who did not seem to be in a rush to return to the party. “Hey, this isn’t the shit that’s poisonous to humans, is it?”  
  
“If it is, it’s been taking its sweet time,” one of them replied.   
  
“Great,” the Bull replied. “Okay, so first you take a flower.”  
  
“And then I eat the flower?” Dorian asked, already halfway to popping it into his mouth.   
  
“No!” The Bull’s hand shot out and captured Dorian’s by the wrist. “You’ve really never done this before?”  
  
“Oh no, I’m an expert honeysuckler, I’m just faking ignorance for shits and giggles,” Dorian retorted.   
  
The Bull snorted. “Okay, sure. Humor me for a bit longer, then. Here’s how you do it, see?”  
  
He showed Dorian the process of pulling the stamen out through the bottom of the blossom.  
  
“Now, you just stick out your tongue for the nectar, and enjoy,” he finished, holding the remains of the flower with the single drop of liquid out to him.    
  
Dorian did so, starting out with a firmly skeptical expression that very quickly morphed into pleasant surprise as the nectar hit his tongue.  
  
“Oh, that is sweet, actually,” Dorian said. “That- that will do it, I think.”  
  
He picked another flower, and nearly ripped the thing in half getting to the nectar. But it seemed to get the job done.   
  
“I- we should probably go,” Dorian said, after a few more flowers as sip of water each later.  
  
“Yeah, you’re right.” He could hear horses from the northern side of the estate- probably carriages getting ready to bring their masters home again. The party was over, or would be soon enough.  
  
“Do you think there’s any chance we might get the rest of the day off?” the Bull asked, looking over the where the sun would rise.  
  
“We should get the morning, I think. At least, I hope,” Dorian replied. “Did you see Kedronus earlier? He’s probably getting a massive hangover right this very second, and I certainly don’t want to deal with him when he’s in that state.”  
  
“Yeah,” the Bull said. “Me neither.”  
  
They made the rest of the walk back in silence.

* * *

 

They did actually have the day off after the party- they weren’t even let out of their cells until midday. The Bull slept until the sun was too high in the sky to allow it, and then began working on decoding Subira’s message.   
  
This kind of work was complicated and tedious under the best of circumstances, which the Bull wasn’t in. It took three nights after that, working by the light of the moons before they moved away from his window, before he managed to put all the pieces together.  
  
Most of the message was instructions on how to send further messages, code words he could use to communicate what was happening.  _Milk_  would refer to Marini and her associates.  _White_  to his boys.  _Dark_  to the Lucerni.  _Semisweet_  was for the ‘Vint government and its members. There were also instructions on how to assign code words to individuals.  
  
There was no promise to pass any information on to his boys. No code word to request extraction from them. There was no mention of trying to get him out at all, which would have been a message in and of itself even if they hadn’t used space to outline his new mission objectives to him.  
  
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Whatever it was about Dorian that had gotten the Archon so interested in him, the Qun would need to know about too.  
  
It was bizarrely comforting, once he’d thought it through a bit. He had an assignment again, a use, a point to being here. He was supposed to keep an eye on Dorian.  
  
It wasn’t even incompatible with escaping, really. The Qun might not be devoting any resources to it, but with all the chaos caused by the rebellion, they were probably stretched pretty thin. If he could get into contact with his boys, and they came to rescue him, it would just be good planning to take Dorian- and as many of the others- with them as possible. And then the Qun wouldn’t just have eyes on Dorian, they’d have eyes on the upper ranks of the Lucerni. They wouldn’t argue with that.  
  
It felt good, knowing that his being here was serving a greater purpose after all. It steadied him, for a time, at least. The thing was knowing that there was a point to his being here did nothing to change the fact that all the pain and suffering that everyone else was going through was completely meaningless.  
  
Things got a little better after the party- or maybe just since Marini had spoken with Decimus the night before it. The guard captain was patrolling around the courtyard as they practiced, even reigning Kedronus in on occasion. He rotated the guards a bit, so that the gladiators were suddenly seeing a lot more of Phyllis and Arsinoe, and a lot less of Valentine. The change in personnel helped curb a lot of the excess, and his presence made everyone smarten up. He’d intervene if it looked like trouble was brewing, most of the time, and the guards knew that as well as the gladiators.   
  
‘Most of the time’ did not necessarily extend to Dorian, however.  
  
“I just wish I knew what I’d done to inspire such hatred,” Dorian complained one day, pitching his voice low so the words barely carried at all.  
  
“You might not have done anything,” Yenko pointed out. “They don’t always need a reason.”  
  
“This certainly feels fucking personal,” Dorian grumbled.  
  
There were still incidents. The guards still couldn’t keep from groping Hillarion on occasion, and they still liked to order Yenko to do menial tasks for no apparent reason, but it was becoming bearable again. Punishments were no longer arbitrary, and Kedronus was no longer attacking them in the middle of their training.  
  
As for Dorian- well, he was trying to avoid drawing attention to himself, and in terms of modifying his behavior he was even succeeding. He kept his head down and saved the commentary for mealtimes. It just didn’t make that much of a difference when the guards knew that they were less likely to be stopped if they picked on him.  
  
Hillarion’s smile began to reach his eyes again. Yenko stood taller, hunched over less. Dorian got quieter and quieter during training, biting his tongue and then spitting out a mouthful of blood onto the ground when the guards weren’t looking.

The Bull was left alone, more or less. Marini’s orders, probably. He was too valuable a fighter, and she wanted him to be her spy in the gladiators. It probably seemed like a smart idea, giving him special protections so there was less of a chance for resentment to fester.  
  
Too little too late, but she didn’t need to know that.  
  
He brought the quill, ink, and paper from his boon outside one evening to write a reply to Subira. He needed to thank her, after all.  
  
“So, what’s everyone’s favorite type of chocolate?” He asked.   
  
Dorian liked his chocolates with sweet chili peppers. He supposed that was as good a code name as any for the guy.

* * *

 

The bathouse was being renovated: some kind of reworking of the hypocaust and redoing of the tiles, or so Yenko had heard. They were redoing the laundry at the same time.   
  
What that meant for the gladiators was that they were spending their afternoons hauling concrete and pipes and whatever, and they were doing it sweaty and covered in dust.   
  
There was some kind of trough for them to rinse themselves off with before dinner, and they each got a bar of soap, a clean rag, and an extra bucket of water in their cells to wipe the worst of the day’s grime away. It wasn’t quite the same thing, especially not after Dorian discovered that someone had taken a dump in his water one night. It hadn’t happened again, let alone to anyone else, but it still left them all feeling on edge.  
  
One afternoon, as they hauled sacks of tiles across the courtyard and over to the construction area, the saw the new slaves arrive from market. One, a young human woman with the blonde hair, green eyes, and olive skin that marked her as being Marini’s type was whisked away towards the seraglio before Decimus had even finished reading the manifest. The rest were sorted through quickly enough: most were shoved off towards the hovels, and all but one of the others went off to the main house, leaving them with their newest gladiator.   
  
The number of new gladiators arriving at the ludus had dropped off as time had worn on. Speculation had it that Marini was holding out for something special to fill out the remaining half dozen empty cells. That made the Bull pretty curious, and he slowed down slightly to get a good look at the guy.  
  
The new guy was an older elf with an “F” branded on his forehead, like Yenko. Unlike Yenko, his brand was fresh and the guy looked to be in shock.  
  
When Dorian saw him he stopped, stock-still, and stared at him with his mouth agape.  
  
“If you’re not moving in about six seconds, that guard is going to notice you,” the Bull told him in an undertone. The guard in question wasn’t normally one of the bad ones, but she’d been in a mood all day, and the Bull was kind of hoping that they’d be able to make it to dinner without her taking it out on Dorian.  
  
“Right,” Dorian muttered, speeding up a little to close the gap in the line. By the time the guard turned to look their way, it appeared as though nothing was amiss.   
  
The new guy didn’t sit at their table for dinner that night. He took his allotted rations, gave the Bull and Vola the stink-eye, and then went to sit at one of the other tables that still had an open slot.  
  
Dorian stared at him. He couldn’t seemed to be able to keep his eyes off him. He was trying to be subtle about it, but subtly was not his strong suit.  
  
“Are you okay?” Crispin asked.   
  
“I’m fine,” Dorian replied. “I just don’t understand what he’s doing here.”  
  
“Who, the new guy?” Tavarius asked, frowning. “I mean, he’s kind of on the old side, to be sure, but that necessarily mean anything. Mara and Yenko do pretty well for themselves.”  
  
Mara rolled her eyes and gave Tavarius a kick under the table.  
  
“It’s not that,” Dorian replied.   
  
“He’s not some kind of Imperium loyalist spy, is he?” Hillarion asked excitedly.  
  
Yenko rolled his eyes, but Dorian beat him to the verbal punch.   
  
“He’s a bloody gardener,” Dorian snapped. “He can’t fight, he’ll last about twenty seconds into his first match before-” Dorian cut himself off, as then rested the remainder of his bread against his soup bowl. He checked where the guards were stationed and what they were paying attention to, and once his path was clear he darted over to the new guy’s table.

“If you don’t wish to speak to me I completely understand,” Dorian said in a rush as he skidded to a halt in front of the new guy’s table. “But did any of the others make it?”  
  
The bread the new guy had been chewing on fell out of his mouth as he gaped. Dorian might have recognized him immediately, but it was obvious to the Bull that under a few days worth of grime and two weeks of beard he hadn’t been recognized in return.  
  
For a moment the man didn nothing but stare, his mouth moving soundlessly. Then, just as one of the guards noticed that Dorian had left his seat and started over with a frown, he replied. “Yes. They all got over the border over a year ago. It’s just me who got caught.”  
  
“Well. That’s something,” Dorian said with a thin smile.   
  
He darted back to the table and nearly made it before the guard stopped him.   
  
“What was that about?” He demanded.  
  
“I just wanted to inquire as to how he was doing,” Dorian replied.   
  
The Bull winced at the light, airy tone he used. The guard raised an eyebrow. Dorian’s eyes darted down to his truncheon, still hooked on the guard’s belt.   
  
“And you couldn’t wait until after you finished eating?” The guard asked.   
  
“I- probably should have done that, yes,” Dorian said, more cautiously. “It’s just- I knew his children, and I haven’t seen him in-”  
  
“Oi, Zamarius!” shouted Arsinoe. “Did you hear about what happened at the Black-and-Gold’s stables last week?”  
  
“Well,  _think_  next time,” Zamarius snapped, and hurried off to join Arsinoe’s conversation.  
  
The Bull shot her a grateful look as Dorian sat down next to him. He was pretty sure that she’d timed her comment for his benefit.  
  
“So. That’s one of your family’s slaves, then,” Yenko remarked, far too casually.  
  
“Yes,” Dorian said shortly. He picked his bread back up and swirled it listlessly in his soup, before he continued. “Or at least, he  _was_. Mardonius came with Mother after she married my father. His mother was her wet nurse, his wife was mine, one of his daughters would have been expected to fulfill that role for my children, had my father had his way.”  
  
“Ah,” Yenko said, shooting a look in Mardonius’ direction. Mardonius was openly staring at them now, eyes wide and unblinking. It was kind of creepy, to be honest.   
  
“He shouldn’t be here, though,” Dorian insisted. “His whole family was supposed to have left Tevinter together. They started heading towards the border almost two years ago, when hostilities broke out in earnest. They were all supposed to get out, that was part of the deal.”  
  
“You helped them escape?” The Bull asked.   
  
“I would dearly love to claim so,” Dorian said with a snort. “But the truth is a bit more complicated.”  
  
“Complicated how?” Yenko asked.   
  
“I was already intending my own escape when- when it became demonstrably unsafe for them to remain there any longer. So they went with me to the Lucerni. We split up almost immediately. It took months before I got word that they were really leaving the country entirely. They were supposed to have been successful- I suppose something must have gone wrong.”  
  
The Bull looked back over at Mardonius. He had shaken himself out of his staring, and turned his attention back to his meal. He didn’t come over to speak with Dorian after dinner, and Dorian made no move to speak any more to him.   
  
That didn’t stop the guards from assigning him to one of the empty cells in their block, however.

* * *

 

Mardonius didn’t eat breakfast with them the following morning. He took his food and went to sit at another table, and when the guards did nothing to stop him the rest of them just shrugged and went about getting through another day.  
  
The Bull watched him during their morning drills, whenever he got the chance. He was an archer, and not a bad one either. From what the Bull could see he was probably even a little better than Yenko, just in terms of accuracy. He was slow, though: he’d finished last during their run, and he always took a moment to find his footing when it came to running target practice.   
  
Hopefully, that could be improved on before the games season began. Otherwise Dorian was probably completely right about his chances in the arena.  
  
Mardonius continued to ignore them all during lunch, and into the afternoon as they carried yet more material over to the construction site. He started staring again only when a pair of the more troublesome guards started harrying Dorian while Decimus pointedly looked the other way.  
  
One “accidental” tripping that had Dorian sprawling onto the ground and spitting out a complicated insult about what animals their mothers were fucking and how much their fathers enjoyed watching, and his eyes got even wider. Whether that was the tripping, the insults, or the calm announcement that Dorian had just earned himself ten lashes for insubordination was anyone’s guess.   
  
“Really now, it’s not as though I specified that it was either of your parents I was referring to,” Dorian snapped.  
  
“That’s fifteen,” Decimus called. “Now get back to work before I make it twenty.”  
  
Dorian pressed his lips together, but picked up his bag of concrete mix he’d dropped and continued on without another word. Mardonius dropped his gaze and did much the same.  
  
And when the time came for dinner, Mardonius came to sit with them as Dorian was strung up.   
  
“He used to steal mangos with my kids,” he said, taking a seat next to Yenko. “It drove the field hands nuts, but it meant more fruit for them while they were growing, and as long as they were with him they weren’t going to get into trouble, so we never bothered telling him that.”  
  
Mardonius flinched violently at the cracking sound the first lash made. And the second. And the third.  
  
“There weren’t a lot of lashings where you were, were there?” Yenko asked.  
  
“No,” Mardonius confirmed with another flinched as the next blow landed. “I mean- don’t get me wrong, it's not like they were  _nice_  to us at the Pavus estate, but they found the sight of whipping scars on a slave’s back to be a bit gauche. So we had sweat boxes instead.”  
  
Yenko shuddered. “I think I prefer the whip.”  
  
“At least it’s over with quickly,” Mardonius agreed, with one final flinch as the fifteenth blow landed. Decimus coiled the whip back off and took it back to wherever it was that the kept those things, and left Dorian hanging. “Or...not.”

“Dorian tends to be left up for a while,” Yenko explained. “They won’t do that to you- you’re too old, like me. They don’t want to risk putting that much strain on our hearts like that, I think.”  
  
“That, and they hate Dorian,” Crispin added. “Decimus in particular has some kind of grudge against him, and he was an Altus. His betrayal went deeper than ours.”  
  
“You’re all Lucerni, then?” Mardonius asked.  
  
“Most of the ludus is,” Hillarion said. “There are a handful of fighter who were here before the rebellion, and some foreigners who missed it, but most of us were captured during it.”  
  
“Most of the luduses are essentially prisoner of war camps these days,” Mara told him. “If you think about it, it’s actually quite smart, doing it like this. Normally by now we’d have been sent to the mines or the quarries or workhouses, but the Lucerni have gotten very good at inciting rebellion in such places. Only a complete fool would have stuck hundreds of us together under those conditions and expect it to end well. But this way, we’re divided. We’re in smaller groups, and the only contact with have with people in other groups is when we’re about to kill each other. Add to that the promise of eventual freedom if you play along, and it’s no wonder we’re crumbling.”  
  
It was like several things the Bull had previously known had suddenly clicked together to form a picture. The ‘Vints were weird about women in the army: they allowed it, but paid them less, denied them recognition and promotions even when they were better soldiers than the men getting them. Mara, a ‘Vint woman, had been a career soldier, and she’d been pretty successful. In order to get to where she’d been, she would have had to work twice as hard to get half as far as any of the men around her.   
  
Mardonius seemed to come to the same conclusion as he did. “Deserter?” He asked.   
  
“I gave the army almost thirty-five years,” Mara confirmed. “Eight as a centurion, for whatever good that might have done me.”  
  
“Huh,” he said.  
  
Dorian was cut down. He gathered up his clothing and then staggered off to the healers. His back had opened up in three places, and blood was trickling down his legs and onto the ground.  
  
“So, how did the rest of you end up with the Lucerni?” Mardonius asked.

“Tavarius and I are also from the military,” Hillarion said. “So was Crispin, at one point.”  
  
“Just my mandatory service,” Crispin corrected him. “I was out after five years, and  _trying_  to get some patronage so I could continued my education, maybe join the bureaucracy, when the Lucerni came around. It was looking like we might win at the time, and I was getting nowhere doing what I was supposed to do, so I joined.”  
  
“As for me,” Yenko said. “You’re looking at the end result of escape attempt number eleven.”  
  
“ _Eleven_?” Mardonius repeated, flabbergasted. “How are you still alive?”  
  
“The same way I managed to escape eleven times,” Yenko replied. “Luck.” He paused to take a sip of his wine. “Vola’s a fugitive too, though I think this is her first attempt.”  
  
Vola shook her head, and began to sign something.  
  
“Second attempt,” Yenko corrected himself. “She tried to run when she was a kid, before they could cut out her tongue, but didn’t get very far. It’s your first time though, isn’t it?”  
  
That question was directed towards the Bull.   
  
He shrugged and improvised. “It wasn’t much of an escape. I woke up one night to find everyone being unchained. The Lucerni had killed our owner, so as far as they were concerned, we were free. They offered to take us down south, either to join up with their main fighting force, or get out of the country entirely, but I decided to strike out on my own. I thought I could go east, to Antiva, and then maybe on to Rivain, but then I ran into a deserter who was being attacked by a tribune, and then this really angry Orlesian elf, and then this sweet Dalish mage, and- well, it got complicated.”  
  
 _Complicated._  That was one word he’d been trying very hard to leave out of his reports about his boys for years.  
  
“Of course, the Bull’s ex-military too,” Tavarius said. “That’s just  _Antaam_  military, not ‘Imperium’s ever-vigilant’ military.”  
  
“Oh,” Mardonius said, and  _there_  it was- some of the sharpness the Bull had been expecting ever since the Fog Warrior had called him out. “So. You’re Tal-Vashoth then?”  
  
“Kind of, I guess,” the Bull hedged. “I was taken off of Seheron a while ago. I’m not sure the Qun would know what to do with me if I went back.”  
  
Mardonius hummed thoughtfully, his eyes slightly narrowed. Before he could say anything more, however, Dorian returned and flopped down into his usual seat next to the Bull. He put his head down with a groan on the table, and folded his arms over it.

“Is he okay?” Mardonius asked.   
  
Dorian sat up so quickly the Bull was worried he might have strained something. “Oh. You’re- you’re here.”  
  
“Yes,” Mardonius replied. “Looks that way.”  
  
He nodded. Dorian nodded. A long and awkward silence fell between them as the rest of the table watched.   
  
Just as the Bull was beginning to reach for a good way to start a conversation, Mardonius did it for him.   
  
“Andraste’s ass, what do I even call you?” he asked.   
  
“It’s still Dorian. No one’s seen fit to take that away yet,” Dorian replied. “I can still call you Mardonius, I presume?”  
  
“Nah, I thought I’d change it to Plucharia III,” Mardonius retorted.   
  
“Mardonius it is, then,” Dorian said. “So. How have you been?”  
  
Mardonius laughed. “Up until a couple of weeks ago, pretty well. I’d recovered from my illness, the Lucerni running the safe house I was staying in seemed optimistic about my chances of making it over the border, I’d gotten word that Anita had given birth to my grandson. I thought you were dead, though.”  
  
“For a while, so did I,” Dorian said. “Apparently the Archon has a different idea. I’m not sure what that idea  _is_  exactly, but for the time being it does not appear to involve dying.”  
  
“Or shaving,” Mardonius pointed out. “I barely recognized you under all that. It only became obvious who you were when you opened your mouth.”  
  
“Yes, that does seem to be a bit of a running theme.”  
  
Another silence, this one more fraught and tense than awkward.  
  
Mardonius broke it again. “Let me just get this out of the way: I’ve wanted to box your ears in for years. The whole being whipped bloody thing is a bit much.”  
  
“Ha!” Dorian replied, though he looked relieved. “Well, I’m so glad to hear that you agree.”  
  
“So. What are we dealing with here?” Mardonius asked. “There was mention of someone named Decimus?”  
  
“The unpleasant fellow with the whip,” Dorian told him. “He’s in charge of the guards here. He’s actually not entirely terrible, presuming you’re not me, which is a quality you possess. And even with me, there are limits to how far he’s willing to go, as much as it pains me to admit it.”  
  
“I’ll be sure to keep on his good side,” Mardonius said. “Anyone else I need to know about?”  
  
“Valentine,” Hillarion all but spat. “Avoid him at all costs.”  
  
Dorian's skin took on an ashen hue, and his eyes darted around the courtyard before he spoke.  
  
“Mardonius can’t be his type,” he said, in that brittle-calm way people had of speaking when they were really upset. “He’s too old.”  
  
“I don’t think he cares,” Hillarion muttered darkly. “I think he just gets off on terrifying people.”  
  
“It’s a wonder he doesn't walk around with a permanent stain on the front of his trousers, then,” Dorian said to Hillarion, before turning back to Mardonius. “He’s one of the shorter ones, I’ll point him out if he shows up to meals.”  
  
The Bull shook his head. “He hasn’t been to meals in a while. I think Decimus has him on a different rotation these days.”  
  
“Small mercies,” Dorian muttered.   
  
“He’s at practice, sometimes,” Yenko said. “I’ll point him out.”  
  
“Thanks,” Mardonius muttered. “I- who else do I need to know about?”

They spent most of the rest of evening running through the guards’ roster for Mardonius, covering the good, the bad and the downright ugly. They pointed out the guard that had taken one of the Bull’s chocolates the night before the party, and the kid who looked but didn’t seem willing to touch; Dorian confirmed that the pair that had zeroed in on him today were always bad news; Yenko promised to point out the pair that weren’t too bad on their own, but once put together got pretty creepy (apparently they’d spent several minutes while escorting Vola back to her cell last night discussing whether or not she could give a real blowjob, seeing as she had no tongue) and they kept going.   
  
It was a lot to take in, and most of it was not good. Mardonius was looking a little overwhelmed by the time they started winding down.   
  
“If you need to interact with the guards for any reason, then Arsinoe is your best bet,” the Bull told him. “Or Phyllis, especially if Arsinoe is somewhere nearby. Arsinoe is pretty sympathetic; Phyllis doesn’t really like to do more than the bare minimum required of her to get to the end of her shift, but she knows that Arsinoe likes it when she’s nice to people, and that seems to take precedent.”  
  
“They’re together?” Mardonius asked, his eyes flicking briefly to Dorian. “Together in that way?”  
  
“It’s not a secret,” Yenko explained. “And there’s no reason for it to be: they’re both Soporati from poor families, so there’s not much in the way of a family line to preserve.”  
  
“Got it,” Mardonius said, and the Bull couldn’t help but get the impression that the two elves had just had a conversation the rest of them had missed. “And what’s the deal with the lanista?”  
  
Crispin snorted into the remainder of his wine. “He’s a barely contained rage abomination, that’s his deal.”  
  
“Not literally,” Dorian hastened to assure him. “Rage demons are terribly unsubtle, you know. Not that Kedronus is anything approaching subtle, but he also isn’t literally glowing red and leaving lava trails.”  
  
“I heard he was on Seheron too,” Hillarion said. “And that he came back all messed up in the head.”  
  
“How’d you hear that?” Mara asked, frowning. “I never heard that.”  
  
“Pillow talk,” Hillarion said with a thin smile.  
  
“Yes, well. Seheron does seem to be the sort of place that would mess one’s head up,” Dorian said, looking directly at Mardonius as he said it.  
  
If Mardonius deigned to acknowledge that, the Bull didn’t see it. At that moment, Phyllis came up to their table, halting the conversation.   
  
“You’re wanted up at the house, Iron Bull,” she said. “There’s a potential sponsor waiting for you.”  
  
“Right,” the Bull said. He finished off the rest of his wine, and then stood. “I’ll talk to you guys later.”

* * *

 

The potential sponsor wasn’t Sequnda, and that was the only good thing to be said about it.   
  
When he left the house it was late, and with the bathhouse still being renovated he went directly back to his cell. There was his bucket of water, undefiled, and his soap, and his rag. He wiped and scrubbed until there couldn’t be any residue of that meeting left on him.That didn’t stop him from feeling it, though, just like it had taken years to learn how to compensate for the lack of depth perception, and adjust his grip to compensate for the missing fingers, like he still turned sideways sometimes to avoid clipping horns he no longer had on the doors, except this wasn’t ever supposed to have been a part of him.  
  
 _When the Ashkaari looked upon the destruction wrought by locusts,  
He saw at last the order in the world._  
  
Sometimes he wondered if there was a greater purpose to the nickname his Tama had given him. She’d always claimed that it had been to tease-  _you’re always thinking, what else am I to call you?_ \- but he still wondered. He wondered especially if she’d had an inkling about how much destruction he would be called upon to witness. If the name was supposed to ease him into oneness with the Qun, help ensure that when he saw it and saw the necessity of suffering and the potential for restoration, rather than seeing a source of despair.   
  
It had worked, too, on Seheron. It had worked for years longer than they had expected him to: one big long blurring of faces on corpses, on civilians (and their corpses), on subordinates (and their corpses) and enemies (and their corpses). More than half the time, he never got to learn anyone’s nicknames. Tallis would be dead and replaced by another Tallis within the week. The girl selling bread would die when the well was poisoned and be replaced with another baker’s apprentice before the end of the month. Within a year, the camp of Fog Warriors he’d been working with would be slaughtered and left ripped open to bake in the sun.  
  
 _A plague must cause suffering for as long as it endures._  
  
This was not as bad as Seheron, not anywhere near as relentless a slaughter and in a way, that was worse. He knew these people. He wasn’t just friendly with them, he was friends. What he felt wasn’t just the sense of obligation that came from being on the same side, but from  _knowing_  they felt something more than that too.  
  
It was obvious- the way they’d defended him from the Fog Warrior, the way they’d encircled him when he returned from that night with Sequnda. Dorian pressed against his side, their legs hooked together, not just drawing strength from the Bull, but lending his own, if the Bull needed it.

He knew these people, and didn’t just know they didn’t deserve to be here, he knew where else they belonged.  
  
Mardonius should be with his family by now. Yenko should have gotten out ages ago, and stayed out. Iris should still be alive. Vola should still have her tongue, and her kith, and her oppidium. Mara should have been able to keep rising in rank, should not have had to prove herself so strongly, and Tavarius and Hillarion should have been allowed to follow in her footsteps. Crispin should never have had to fight in two wars in order to prove himself worthy of becoming a scholar. Dorian should be as far away from here as he could get- should have been with his friends, with the Alexius family, should have had the chance to either patch things up with Rilienus or make a clean break of it.  
  
No. That was wrong.   
  
This wasn’t a matter of locusts. This was no passing cloud of destruction that would leave once it had devoured what it could find. The destruction, the source of the suffering, was deeper than that, a matter of shifting foundations. This was an earthquake. This whole rotten country was an earthquake.  
  
Mara would have made a fine Sten, and Tavarius and Hillarion would have been right at home in the middle ranks of the Antaam. Yenko might have been Ben-Hassrath once, but he would have been retired to besrathari by now, teaching the younger operatives what they needed to know to survive. Iris might have done that- might have made a very good Tallis with more training. Vola was drawn to beauty and craftsmanship: the Arigena would have welcomed her with open arms. He didn’t know Mardonius well enough yet to say what his role would be, but Crispin and Dorian-  
  
Well. There was only thing Crispin and Dorian would be allowed to do.  
  
 _A self of suffering brings only suffering to the world._  
  
Dorian would never last under the Qun. Crispin might have fared a little better, but only if he’d been born to it. If the Qun came to him now, it would come with qamek, needle, and thread.  
  
It wasn’t all true about the others, either. Yenko would chafe at the rigidity of the Qun, and would ultimately run from them just as surely as he had run from his masters in Tevinter. Mara  _would_  make a good Sten, but she would be a piss-poor man, and wouldn’t be able to handle the strain of being aqun-athlok when it didn’t come naturally to her like it did to Krem. The Qun would break her too.  
  
 _It is a choice, and we can refuse it._  
  
It wasn’t likely to come up. If the Qun were coming here, they would have had him preparing for that instead of watching Dorian get the shit beat out of him day in and day out. They wanted eyes on him- eyes on what the Archon coveted- and they would continue to want eyes on him after the Bull managed to make contact with Krem and start making arrangements for their escape. They would need his eye even more, if the Lucerni were still fighting: Dorian would join back up with them in a heartbeat, of that he had no doubt.  
  
With his way forward clear and fixed in his mind, the Bull rolled over in his bed and forced himself to sleep.   
  
 _It is a choice and we can refuse it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mardonius is, without a doubt, the original character I am most nervous about.


End file.
